


To Draw New Mischief On

by StudioRat



Series: Branches and Fate [6]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Ableist Language, Adventure, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, All’s well that ends well, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Dysphoria, But He Gets Better, Curses, Eating Disorders, Epic Battles, Epic Friendship, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family Feels, Fantastic Racism, Fate & Destiny, Ganondorf is a huge nerd, Gender Dysphoria, Goat Farm, Gothic, Growing Up, Home, Identity, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Intrigue, Intrusive Thoughts, It Gets Better, Many callbacks to earlier in the series, Multi, Names, Nerdiness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Siblings, Returning Characters, Scenery Porn, Secrets, Sheik is Zelda, Sibling Bonding, Underage Drinking, Violent Thoughts, War, also bawdy jokes, also several bigoted support characters, family au, gan throws them in the midden, link is so broken, most of them anyway, multiple POV eventually, there will be fight scenes later, we’re on the home stretch now, zelda is a jerk for a while
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 11:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 93,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16680598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StudioRat/pseuds/StudioRat
Summary: Strange things have been happening here lately. You need to be ready for anything. You'd better find a weapon!You're a nice person... Aren't you?Thou hast verily demonstrated thy courage... I knew that thou wouldst be able to carry out my wishes.  I was doomed before thou started, but do not grieve for me.Would you defy destiny, hero?This is Hyrule's final hope. The future depends upon thee...Everyone has gone away, haven't they? Well, let's do something else. Let’s play good guys against bad guys... yes. Let's play that. Are you ready? You're the bad guy. And when you're bad, you just run. That's fine, right?





	1. Memory

**Author's Note:**

> > To mourn a mischief that is past and gone  
> Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
> 
> T - 17 

Hiraeth’s earliest memory is of his parents fighting. The priests say it is impossible for a child of three to remember events with any detail, that what he thinks he remembers is patchwork cloth of hopes and fears and fragments of other people’s stories.

Hiraeth knows they are wrong, for no one ever tells this story. This story belongs only to Hiraeth, and to his father, and neither of them have ever told it. Not even to each other.

Hiraeth’s teachers say the light priests say time erodes truth, unless it is preserved against such corruption by sealing it in blessed inks and carved holy stones and the rigid glyphs of the language of Light. They say Hiraeth is telling lies, but they also say it isn’t his fault, really. They pity him, because he can’t help the flaw in his blood, and no magic in the world can remove the stain of evil on the soul.

Hiraeth knows that in this too, they are wrong. There are many stories no one ever tells anyone, and no matter how hard people work at not telling the story, it doesn’t stop being true.

Hiraeth is happy the Light priests are wrong about these things, even though his stepmother says that it is wicked to argue with the wisdom of his elders. She doesn’t understand him, and tells him often she would much rather he have taken after his father. She says their life would be easier if he had been born fair and small. If he would hold his tongue more often than not, if he would be more clever with his hands instead of his questions. If his eyes were blue or green or brown or any other color in the world except ill-omened roc gold.

When she is angry with his father, she reminds Link she didn’t have to let him keep his bastard son. That it would have been better for everyone had he never joined the army at all if he was just going to desert his king and country when they posted him to the Gerudo border. That if he couldn’t make a proper soldier he certainly hadn’t any business at all laying down with a shameless thief, and even less dragging her cursed whelp about when she perished in childbed.

She never says these things to Hiraeth, but though the little house is solidly built, noise carries up the stairs, down the hall, under the doors and through the windows. When they fight, Hiraeth crouches between his bed and his shelves, trying not to move or breathe, straining to hear. It’s important to know why they’re shouting, so he can find out what he did wrong, and keep it from happening again as long as possible.

He truly can’t remember a time before that night, but he knows it wasn’t the first time the fight began because of him. He knows this because he remembers knowing it is a good hiding place already, where the shadows won’t tell on him, where he can pull the blankets into his lap so he won’t give himself away by getting cold and his teeth chattering.

Hiraeth bites his hand to stop himself from laughing when he hears his father shout in return. Link is not a talkative man, and so rarely raises his voice - but on this night he shouts. He says she is wrong, that the priests are wrong, the townspeople are wrong. Hiraeth knows it is bad to laugh in the middle of serious things, but to hear his father shout these things is amazing, and sometimes he cannot resist the wickedness in his fiery Gerudo blood.

When his stepmother is _not_ angry, she says it will get easier when he is older. That if he tries harder, if he is always a very good boy, and says his prayers with his whole heart, the gods will strengthen his Hylian blood. Hiraeth tries to believe her, for she is also half Gerudo, and knows many useful things the Light priests do not.

But mostly, Hiraeth prays for the goddesses to scour the evil from his blood and let him find the tears they shed for the fallen world, so he can fix everything that is wrong and broken and unfair. He needs to fix the disorder of the world more deeply than the worst hunger he’s ever felt. He needs it so badly he wants to howl his fury at the skies, but then his parents will know he is not asleep.

Anyways it’s against the rules to holler if he isn’t bleeding or worse. Hylian children scream and shriek and yell like wild things when they play games, but Hiraeth looks like his Gerudo mother, so he has to be better than them. Always.

So Hiraeth bites his own hand instead, straining to sift the story from the shouting downstairs. They have circled back to the start of things, his stepmother yelling about Link’s unnatural bastard. Hiraeth still can’t make sense of what he _did_ that makes her say this again, but now she is crying, too. She complains of how hard it is to deal with Hiraeth’s moods, his wild fantasies, his rambunctious adventures.

Link shouts that this is the nature of children to do these things. He swears at her, reminding her of her promise to love Hiraeth as her own. He tells her it is this is the very reason he married her, because she alone of the women who sought him out was willing to love his son too. She asks his father how he expects her to keep giving her heart when he won’t give her a child, when he won’t even come to her bed half the week.

His father roars at her, and swears that he will give her a real reason to cry if he ever finds her punishing Hiraeth when she is angry with _him_. She swears that she doesn’t, she would never, and she cries harder. She begs Link to tell her why he ever married her if he hates her so much that he would think such a terrible thing. She says she tries to love Hiraeth, it is only that he makes everything so very hard. She says he isn’t like he’s supposed to be, that Link must be lying about his age, or that Hiraeth’s mother must have had witchblood.

Link swears, and falls silent. The little house resonates with tension, and his stepmother says something he cannot hear at all. After another long silence Link says that she is right in part only, that this is why - something. Hiraeth cannot hear any word at all after the why, not even a murmur of it. But his stepmother cries out that she knew it, that it could not be chance Hiraeth is so uncanny, ill-omened, headstrong. She begs to know why Link punishes _her_ for his son’s faults, when she tries so hard to be a good mother.

Link sounds tired when he says he isn’t trying to punish her. That his work does keep him late, and though he is truly tired, and he has no wish to bring the nightmares of the war to her bed.

His stepmother asks Link again for a child of her own. She says maybe he could have a little couch in his workroom for those bad nights, if only he will come to her _sometimes_ . If only he will try, then she will try harder too. She points out that maybe Hiraeth would do better with little sibs to keep him company and to help look after. That it might help him be more _normal_.

Hiraeth tries to be a good boy. He wonders what makes witchblood different than regular Gerudo blood, or if it’s just another mean thing Hylians say about people with dark skin. He wonders sometimes if this is what the Light priests really mean when they say Hiraeth has a wickedness inside him that stains his soul. He wouldn’t mind having a sib, or he thinks he wouldn’t, but he can’t understand how his stepmother thinks it could make anything different inside his heart.

Link swears, and Hiraeth hears the snap of the locks on the cabinet where his father keeps his old plain sword, and his many jars of strong spirits, and the box of carved bone and polished stone and steel rings to add to his son’s necklace every year on his birthday. It is not Hiraeth’s birthday, not even tomorrow or the tomorrow-of-tomorrow, so Hiraeth tells himself his father is only getting a drink as he so often does.

His father loves him. He says so, and his father never lies about anything. It is only Hiraeth’s own wickedness, his wild imagination. It is surely the whispers of evil spirits that make the sound of steel sliding from oiled sheepskin, his own twisted soul that says the creak of the stairs is surely his father coming for him.

The floor vibrates with his father’s steps pausing outside his door, and Hiraeth knows he cannot climb back in bed without the straps creaking and giving him away. He pulls the blankets over his head and huddles in the darkness, pretending to be asleep. After all, he does fall out of bed sometimes when the nightmares come, and so even when the hinges squeak, Hiraeth tries very hard to breathe slow and even. He does not peek under the edge of the blanket, and he does not cry. He tells himself if he is very quiet his father will see he is asleep and go away again.

Hiraeth hears the crack and hiss of a sulfur match, and the sweet scent of the fragrant lamp oil blooms even under the quilted silk blanket. The hinges complain again, and the door closes. Hiraeth wills himself to breathe, but his throat closes because his father’s footsteps do not recede at all, but approach instead.

Link sighs, setting the lantern on the shelf, and sits down on the bed.

Hiraeth waits, knowing his father doesn't believe his make-pretend sleeping at all, but he can’t bring himself to move the blanket or even open his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” says Link, his voice barely louder than the hiss of the lamp.

Hiraeth bites his lip but the serpent winds around his throat and his eyes water shamefully anyway. He tells himself he is only dreaming, that none of this is real, and he will wake up soon. But his leg is falling asleep and he knows he won’t be able to stay still forever.

“I know you won’t believe me, but it is true. I _am_ sorry, more sorry than I think you will ever be able to understand,” says Link. “Once, long ago, they called me a hero for the things I did. I too once believed in legends and prophecies and fairy tales, but we are not in that time anymore.”

Hiraeth waits in the silence, wondering how much death will hurt, or if it is as their strange gray-skinned neighbor says, and death is an end of hurting.

The bed straps creak as Link rocks forward to pull the blanket away from Hiraeth. Their eyes meet in the heavy silence, and Hiraeth scrubs his hand over his grubby face, ashamed to be caught crying. He looks away, at the wall, at the floor, at the blanket, anything at all but his father’s cold blue eyes.

“Come here,” says Link, offering his calloused hand.

Hiraeth obeys, letting Link lift him to his feet but he does not look up. He does not look at the clean ridge of the ancient scar crossing Link’s throat, or the uneven furrow that almost stole his father’s right eye. He bites his lip again, pretending his stupid leg isn’t full of pins and needles and lightning. He’s already seen the knife laying on the bed at his father’s side, and his face burns with shame. Of _course_ he wouldn’t go to the trouble of taking the big sword down for him. Swords are for worthy opponents.

“It’s ok,” says Link, caressing his hair. “I don’t want to do this either, but I - this will make your mother happy. Happier, anyway. I will be careful. Ok? It won’t hurt. Oh please - stop crying. I can’t do this if you’re crying.”

Hiraeth can’t help it. He cries harder.

Link sweeps him up in his arms, holding him and rocking his whole body back and forth so the straps of the bed form a counterpoint rhythm to the lullaby rolling from his tongue.

Hiraeth cries until his throat hurts and his nose overflows with snot and his father’s white linen shirt is stained and sodden. He wants to be soothed by his father’s embrace, but he isn’t at all. He thinks of his stepmother and he wants to be angry, he wants to run away, but Link is holding him and saying his secret name and he feels so strange and wobbly he can’t finish a thought before another one begins.

“I’m here. I’ve got you. It’s ok. I’m with you. You’re safe. I love you. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you. Everything will be alright this time. You’ll see. Just trust me Jojo. Please, oh please - I know it’s hard. gods and spirits, I know you haven’t the smallest reason to believe me, but I need you to try,” says Link, over and over.

Hiraeth feels so heavy he imagines he will fall from his father’s strong arms and through the floor, and the floor below that, and the basement below that, until the very ground swallows him up forever. Yet even so, his heart is so full he can barely breathe. He wonders why his father only holds him when he is hurting, but he isn’t brave enough to ask.

So he cries until the hiccups come, and he cries until his eyes hurt so much he can hardly see for the fog of red. When he can cry no longer, still he lingers in his father’s arms, listening to his gentle voice pouring out the same words again and again.

Hiraeth sighs, cracking his eyes open, staring down the lamplight reflected off the bright little curved knife. Then he notices the golden box beside it, which he hadn’t before. “What is it baba?”

“Why do I say this? Because I want you to always remember there is Light inside you, Jojo. Even when the world is hard and ugly and dark,” says Link, winding him even tighter. “You must always hold onto the light in your heart, no matter what happens, no matter how small and fragile and foolish it seems to you.”

“I mean the box,” says Hiraeth when he can breathe again.

Link laughs at him, short and sharp and bitter. He strokes Hiraeth’s hair and nods his chin toward the golden box. “It is a puzzle. Maybe a little much for a very small Jojo, but I will show you how it is done. And if you forget how before you want to open it again, come to me after your mother is asleep and I will show you again.”

“But,” said Hiraeth, working his tongue in vain. He cannot push the words past his teeth, and he cannot bear the sting of hope.

“It will be our secret,” whispers Link, bowing to kiss the top of his head.

Hiraeth hiccups because his throat is too raw to wail. He doesn’t understand how his father can say these things with the little knife _right there_.

“Are you ready? Here, look at me. Let me clean you up,” says Link. He wipes away tears and snot with his sleeve, as if it doesn’t matter at all that his shirt is going to be stained and disgusting forever. “Isn’t that better? It will be alright. You’ll see.”

“I just - I don’t understand baba,” says Hiraeth, ashamed of the wobble in his voice.

“I don’t either,” says Link with a shrug. “I think it is far too early to think of cutting off your baby curls, but it is Hylian custom for little boys. You look older than you are, and your mother worries that it will be hard for you to fit in. Harder, anyway. It will make her happy to know there is even one less thing for the other children to tease you about.”

“My _hair_ ,” says Hiraeth, grabbing reflexively for his curls, his voice thin as the squeak of the door hinges.

“I know,” says Link with a sigh, rubbing slow circles on his back. “I like it better this way too. Especially after - I mean, it suits you. Even if it does tangle when we let you wear it loose. It’s not fair, but sometimes we - have to do things that aren’t fair, or easy.”

Hiraeth shakes his head, staring at the little knife, and the golden puzzle box his father brought to console him. “But it will make momma happy.”

“Yes,” says Link with another long sigh. “It is - important that your mother is happy. Do you understand?”

“Yes baba. I understand now,” says Hiraeth, and he is glad his father will never know the true depth of the wickedness festering inside his bastard son. “But what is the puzzle for?”

“You’ll see. Promise to sit very still for me, Jojo? Knives are very sharp - you must never play with sharp things, or even around them. You could get hurt, and I do not want you to ever hurt like that ever again,” says Link, picking up the little knife. His hand trembles, and the lantern-light shimmers on the curved blade.

“I promise,” says Hiraeth, scrubbing his fist across his stupid nose one last time and bowing his head. He wonders what his father means about hurting _again_ , but something stops his question before it can fall from his tongue, and then the moment is gone.

Link sets down the knife as if he’s forgotten what he was doing. He breathes in and out, and takes from his pocket a square of black silk. He spreads it out on the bed next to them, patting it smooth. He sighs, and picks up the knife. “It won’t take long,” he says.

“Ok,” says Hiraeth, crossing his bare ankles and trying his best to be patient.

Now it is Link who cries, sniffling every time he lays another fiery lock on the square of black silk. Hiraeth does not understand why his father is so upset about something that doesn’t matter. He worries that if he asks questions, he will have to explain his own foolish tantrum.

At last it is finished. Link wipes his face on his own ruined shirt, and sets the knife aside so he can tie the corners of the silk together and wrap a second black cloth around it the other way. He pets Rajo’s unevenly fuzzy head, and sighs mightily.

“It’s ok baba,” says Hiraeth, patting his father’s hand.

“Just - don’t be in a hurry to grow up, ok? Your mother is a clever woman, and she loves you and only wants the best for you, same as me. Just because your hair is short doesn’t mean you’re any different than before. You’re still my little Jojo,” says Link.

“Yes baba,” says Hiraeth. “Will you show me the box now?”

Link laughs again, same as before, but he picks up the golden box and gives it to Hiraeth. He lets Hiraeth poke and pry at it, pointing out this or that shape as he turns it in his hands. At last he turns Hiraeth himself, so he’s sitting in his father’s lap and facing the same way. Link reaches around either side of him, taking the golden box and twisting it in his hands. In a few moments, the catch releases, and the top layer of gilded brass slides apart so the second layer can unfold like a moonflower with fairy writing on it.

Hiraeth hums appreciatively at the beauty of the little puzzle box, and Link folds it closed. He solves it again, slower this time, so Hiraeth can see what he’s doing. The third time, he covers Hiraeth’s hands with his own, guiding him through the steps of unlocking it for himself.

Hiraeth lies to his father, saying he knows the trick now, that he doesn’t need to be shown again. Link believes his make-pretend this time. He picks up the silk bundle of Hiraeth’s baby curls and tucks it away inside the puzzle box, snicking it closed again.

Hiraeth holds the puzzle box, and Link holds Hiraeth, and the silence holds them both. When the lantern begins to flicker, they are both yawning. So Link tucks Hiraeth under his blankets the right way, and lays his finger beside his nose.

“Shh. Our secret,” he whispers, taking the puzzle box away.

Hiraeth watches his father use the little knife to pry the pegs loose from a floorboard, and loosen the years of varnish and dirt still gluing one board to its neighbor. At last he works the plank free, and with a sour-apple smile, lays the puzzle box into the darkness underneath. Link shaves a little more varnish from the edges of the plank and returns it to its place. He takes a little stick of aspenwood from the shelf, wedging the narrow end into one of the empty peg-holes. A moment’s work, and he pries the floorboard open again.

“ _Oh_ ,” says Hiraeth. “Our secret.”

Link nods, returning board and stick to their places.

Hiraeth’s earliest memory is of the first lie his father taught him.


	2. Tradition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that Sorrows is finished, Branches and Fate returns to its Wednesday posting schedule. Yay!
> 
> (If you’re missing a Thursday entertainment though, the Shade of My Enemy comic on my Patreon updates Thursdays. The backlog on *that* epic little story is finally crunching through the First Pivot Point too! Yay for happier tales...)

Hiraeth wakes before dawn on summer solstice, as he does every year. It is the best of holidays, for today he has neither lessons nor chores, and his stepmother will make honeyed nutcakes and sweet rice pudding and spiced lemonade. 

He is six, and birthdays are still too exciting to think of sleeping late. What if something wonderful should happen, and he misses it? 

Hiraeth tidies his blankets and puts on his oldest clothes in the quiet. Even the birds are more lazy than him in the hot, humid grayness. He opens his door so slowly and carefully he imagines he will fly into a thousand pieces like a fireflower if the hinges squeal and betray him. 

The hinges whisper, and the stairs only sigh as he sneaks downstairs to meet his father in the garden behind the house. Sometimes he wonders if his father sleeps at all - or if it is only that he cannot bring himself to lay down for it like other people do. He finds Link asleep on the bench beneath the oak tree they share with the neighbor, a glass of astringent tea about to slip from his fingers. 

Hiraeth scrambles to catch it before it can shatter on the path. He returns it safely to the tray as his father stirs awake.

“Ah, Jojo. You are up early today,” says Link, yawning. “Nightmares?”

“No baba, I’m fine. Just hard to sleep when it’s hot,” he says. “Anyways aren’t we going to visit Brother Goro today?”

Link combs his fingers through his golden hair, and his blue eyes stare into the far-away. “I planned that for tonight, when it cools off.”

“But baba - once little Ishi wakes up, Myra and Kyra will follow me everywhere until bedtime, and then it will be too late,” says Hiraeth, leaning against his father’s knee.

“I thought you liked playing with the twins,” says Link without looking at him.

“I do, but I do that  _ every _ day baba. Birthdays are special,” says Hiraeth, tangling his clumsy fingers together as he tries to find the right words. He knows it is a selfish thing he wants, and he doesn’t like to make his father angry, especially today. But he can’t stop wanting it. “It’s just - going to see Brother Goro has always been just us before.”

“Hn,” says Link, unsmiling. “Very well. Your mother wanted more butter from the market anyway. Put your boots on, and I will fetch the box.”

Hiraeth waits for his father in the garden as the sun rises and the lazy birds resume their chatter where they left off the day before. It does not take long to go in the little house and open the locked cabinet, but Hiraeth hears glass clink. He is not surprised. His father always needs a glass of spirits before they visit Brother Goro. 

No one ever speaks of this, but Hiraeth is certain it is because of the war. 

Everything is always because of the war, in the end.

The wind picks up as they walk to the other side of the village. Link buys them both fried cakes on the way, and sweet summer melon from the lowlands. It is a long walk to see Brother Goro, but this year Hiraeth is determined to manage the hike up the mountain without needing help. He doesn’t mind the silence half as much as he minds that Link brought a flask with him this time.

Hiraeth does not like the sharp fumes of the pale golden spirits inside that flask.

It is nearly noon when they reach Brother Goro’s house, and they all sit together in the rock garden drinking tea, talking of nothing. The weather, the prices of things, the adventures of Link’s twins and Goro’s.

When the tea is gone, Goro pours firerock shards into the smaller forge, and unlocks the red and gold chest of special tools. One by one he lays them in the coals, and Link opens the little box of carved bone and polished stone and steel rings.

“Baba - will my sisters get necklaces on their birthdays someday too?” Hiraeth asks, watching Goro sort through the box and count out pins to soften.

Link shakes his head. “I thought you liked the idea of this being just for you.”

“I do,” says Hiraeth, folding his hands behind his back so he won’t be tempted to touch things. “I was just wondering. Momma wears necklaces sometimes, but they’re different than mine.”

Link agrees, and gets out his flask again. Brother Goro raises his enormous shaggy brows, but says nothing. He opens more rings, weaving them together and forging them shut around bones and gemstones. 

“It is a tradition from my village,” says Link after a while.

Hiraeth bites his tongue until he can pretend to be calm. His father  _ never _ speaks of his past. “Where is your village? Can we go there someday?”

“It is nowhere at all,” says Link, looking at his flask as if he couldn’t decide whether to open it again. “It was destroyed in the war, and there is nothing to go back to.”

“Where was it? What was it like? What happened? Is that why you became a soldier?” Hiraeth clamps his hand over his mouth in shame, for he can’t stop his questions any other way.

But Link does not get angry. He only unscrews the flask again. 

“A bit heavy for the little guy,” says Brother Goro gently, tap-tapping another ring shut as the new piece of chain grows on the smooth forgestone.

“He is old enough to understand,” says Link. “You will not find the place on any map, but it lay far to the south and west, in a forest much different than the ones here. It was a place too small for a name, but that didn’t shield it from sorrow.”

“Is anyone ever old enough to understand that, brother?” Goro asks, not looking up from his work.

“It’s ok,” says Hiraeth, face warm from more than the forge heat. “I just wondered, because Ishi is starting to notice it and Myra and Kyra love sparkly things and-”

“It is a good thought,” interrupts Link, raising the flask to his lips again. “If your mother agrees, we will see about finding pretty stones for their birthdays too. Different ones. Suitable for little girls who must climb on everything.”

Hiraeth laughs in spite of himself, and Brother Goro laughs also, waving him over to the high iron bench so he can loosen a few rings of the necklace. The twins  _ are _ halfway wild, running about like bombachu and into every sort of mischief from the moment they rise until they finally tire themselves out at night.

Link reminds him to sit still, savoring a long drink. “This chain is - a part of your inheritance. A reminder of your pride - and your responsibilities. When you are old enough, Brother Goro will make you bracelets to match.”

Hiraeth tries not to squirm as Goro weaves the new piece of chain onto the old. He can feel the searing heat of the tools  _ almost _ touching his skin, but the deft old smith has never once burned him.

“Baba, I still don’t understand,” he says when he cannot hold back his question any longer. “Why me, and not my sisters?”

“You are the firstborn son,” says Link, screwing the cap back into the empty flask. “These chains belonged to my brother, and now they belong to you.”


	3. Legend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 11

Long ago yesterday, and maybe again tomorrow, there were two strong sons born into the royal house. They were given the best of everything there was: the masters of every discipline and sacred mystery were summoned to the castle to be their teachers; they ate the best food; they wore the most beautiful clothes; and their parents loved them very much.

  
  
_ “Ugh, hibi, that sounds like a boring story.” _

_ “Patience, avha. We have barely begun.” _

 

As time passed, one became wise, and the other became wicked.    
  


_ “Ooh hibi - that’s much better.” _

_ “What happened next?” _

  
He hid his wickedness from everyone so well that everyone said they were alike as two sides of the same sword, and indeed, they did love one another well and do everything together.   
  


_ “But hibi, how could a wicked prince love anyone?” _

_ “Shh avha - listen.” _ __  
  


By the grace of the Lady of Light the wise prince saw the darkness in his brother’s heart, but loved him too well to believe in it. The time came the princes were old enough to marry, and the wise prince stood aside to let his brother seek firstly, for he hoped a good match would lift his twin into the Light once more.    
  
The wicked brother chose the Lady Marin, for she was the most beautiful of all. She believed his false promises, and accepted his suit. They wed, and by and by she went away to his castle in the north to live with him, for she was both young and kind.   
  


_ “Did he lock her up in a tower?”  _

_ “Did he eat her heart and make her a ghost?” _

_ “Well did he?” _

_ “Even worse, my sweets - listen.” _ __  
  


The wise prince remained with the King and Queen and on the strength of his deeds the people began to say he would be a good King when the time came for his father to set aside the crown. This made the wicked prince angry, and though he had every good thing and a beautiful, virtuous wife, and three strong children besides, he was jealous, for he wanted to be the most powerful of all.   
  
The wicked prince devised a scheme, taking his whole family and all his servants, and knights, and their servants with him to the capital to celebrate the birthday of the wise prince, which was also his own. The King and Queen embraced their son and the Lady Marin and all their children, and showered them with love, for they were blessed by the Lady of Light to be good and kind in all things.   
  


_ “That’s dumb hibi.” _ __  
  


The wise prince held back, for the Lady of Light had sent him dreams of a mortal fight with his twin, wherein he would take a grievous wound. He saw in his brother’s eyes the truth of his heart, but still he loved too well to speak of this to anyone.    
  


_ “Ugh hibi! We want a good story. Why are you telling us a dumb story about a dumb prince?” _

_ “Patience, avha - he is not dumb forever.” _

_ “The dumb old king should have had a princess instead.” _

_ “Yeah! They should both be princesses!” _ __  
_ “There will be a princess later, you’ll see.”  _ __  
_ “I want a princess now-!” _ __  
  


The Lady Marin-   
  


_ “Princess!” _

  
Princess Marin understood his sorrow, but she had learned to be afraid of her husband’s anger. So she persuaded the wise prince to embrace his wicked brother, and prayed to the Lady of Light for peace between them.   
  


_ “Wait - you tricked us!” _ _  
_ _ “I did no such thing, avha. You wanted a princess-“ _

_ “We wanted a smart princess. Marin is dumb and stupid.” _

_ “Oh no, she was exceedingly clever, only we are not at that part yet.” _

_ “Well skip to the good part then.”  _ _  
_ _ “And they lived happily ever after.” _

_ “Hibi!” _

_ “The end.” _

_ “HIBI-!” _

_ “Goodnight, my sweets.” _

_ “No hibi come back - we will listen.” _

_ “Promise. Tell us what happened next.” _ _  
_ _ “Yeah! Did they fight?” _

_ “Did they stab each other?”  _

_ “Was it gross?” _

  
The ways of the gods are often mysterious to mortals, and the wise prince realized that his heart yearned for Princess Marin. He prayed for the Light to take away his longing, but instead it multiplied. So great was his struggle that he forgot his duties and turned away from his family and everything he loved best.   
  
On the night before the birthday feast, Princess Marin was seized with a great and terrible feeling of doom. She went to the wicked prince and begged him to leave the capital that very night. He saw the truth of her compassion for the wise prince, and in fury bore her away to his own castle in the darkness.   
  


_ “Oooh and then what happened?” _

  
The wicked prince summoned all his barons, and dukes, and counts, and knights, and squires, and even the peasants in the field, ordering them to make ready for war against his brother. He locked the Lady Mar-   
  


_ “Princess!” _   
  


-Princess Marin in the highest tower, and strung the key around his own neck so no one could even see her but himself. He told everyone a great lie, and soon the whole country turned one against the other depending which brother they loved best.   
  
The wise prince made a shield of his sorrow and a sword of his rage, and set out for the north with his most trusted knights to free the Princess and restore peace to the realm. Together they laid siege to the castle of the wicked prince, and for eight days and seven nights the battle raged fearsomely.    
  
But on the eighth night, the wise prince saw how his loyal knights had been greatly wounded, and how the castle of his brother remained strong, so he left his army and went to shrine in the woods to pray.   
  


“ _ And the wicked prince surprised him in the dark and slew him?” _

_ “Precisely so. You are very clever to be reading already - here, read us the rest avha.” _

_ “Hibi-! What are you doing? We want to know what happens next!” _

_ “Well go on and read it to us then avha.” _ _  
_ _ “Hibi, don’t be mean.” _

_ “Oh yes - how silly of me. You should get the next line. Here-” _

_ “Hibi no! Come on, read it to us. Please?” _ _  
_ _ “Promise we’ll be quiet. Finish the story hibi?” _

_ “Why should I ever do such a silly thing? You two are quite five times clever as I to be reading so young, and so many improvements to the tale besides, which I would surely have overlooked.” _

_ “Pretty please hibi?” _

_ “Ah, very well. Where were we?” _

_ “The stupid prince was saying his prayers.” _ _  
_ _ “No, you’re getting it all wrong. The wise prince. Yes?” _

_ “Tell us?” _

  
By and by, while the wise prince knelt before the gods, a powerful sheikah came to the very same shrine. She knew him for a son of the royal house at once, so she disguised herself as an old beggar woman, to test him. He gave her his cloak to keep warm, and his golden earrings to sell since he had no food with him, and when she asked what he prayed for, he told her the truth.   
  


_ “Oh hibi - was it wicked?” _ _  
_ _ “Shh - or he will stop again.” _

  
The sheikah knew how the Princess Marin had suffered at the hands of the wicked prince, and so she said to his twin that she would help him gain everything he ever wished for if he would promise to give her the care and keeping of his firstborn, for she had never been able to bear children of her own. He understood this as a sign from the goddess, and agreed.   
  


_ “Oh no!” _

_ “Oh yes. Even wise princes can make wicked vows, avha.” _ _  
_ _ “No! He should be a princess instead so he would know better.” _

_ “Yeah! Make him a princess hibi.” _

_ “I can’t avha - in this story it must be a prince because of what happens later.” _ _  
_ _ “But hibi, he’s being stupid. Anyways princesses are the ones that have the babies so-” _

_ “Yes avha, but princes are important to this too. And sometimes, a bad thing has to happen first so a better thing can happen later.” _

_ “But that’s not fair!” _

_ “No avha, but remember - even you were excited to see if the brothers should be wicked to each other.” _

_ “Oh. But - I didn’t mean it. I just thought it would be interesting.” _

_ “Exactly so.” _

_ “But what happens next hibi?” _

  
The wise prince returned to the battlefield and called out to his brother, hurling the foulest names at him. He swore before the gods that unless he was the lowest coward, he should answer the challenge himself. That he should come down to the field before their assembled knights and settle their quarrel forever.   
  
The wicked prince heard this with a terrible gladness, for he saw a chance to take the throne for himself alone. He led his closest knights onto the field, swearing them to cause a disturbance while he dueled his twin, and in the chaos, they should rush in to ensure his brother’s swift end.    
  


_ “No!” _

_ “That’s awful!” _

_ “In part - he was wicked, but not cruel. He truly did not wish his dearest brother to suffer, but he could not overcome the greed in his heart either.” _

_ “But did the wise prince escape?” _

_ “What happened to the princess?” _

_ “Were the King and Queen sad?” _

_ “The brothers fought from dawn to twilight and when both their swords lay broken and they had bled all over everything, they saw the error of their ways. They hugged and forgave each other and everyone went home to be happy. The end.” _

_ “No - hibi, that’s not right at all. There are still more pages.” _

_ “Oh, but there is nothing interesting on them at all. It is time for bed, you have a long day ahead of you.” _

_ “Tell us the real story, hibi. Please?” _

_ “But that is the real story. See? They hugged and said they were sorry and everyone lived happily ever after. Says it right there.” _

_ “Hibi.” _

_ “Mm. Perhaps this is not the best bedtime story - we will read a nicer one tomorrow. About pumpkins and a silly cucco who tries to hatch one perhaps.” _

_ “Please?” _

_ “We don’t want cucco! We want to hear what happens to the wise prince!” _

_ “All right - on one condition: when we get to the end you must promise to go straightaway to sleep, and be good all day tomorrow. It is already well past your bedtime as it is, and momma will say no more stories if you are cross with everyone tomorrow.” _

_ “We promise.” _

  
It happened that the brothers did battle from dawn to twilight, and when the twilight fell at last they were both deeply wounded. In the darkness, even their own knights could barely tell them apart. The secret magic of the sheikah touched the battlefield, and made certain the knights would each carry away the wrong prince.   
  
The wise prince roused in his brother’s rooms and understood at once what the sheikah had done. He spoke softly to his brother’s best knight, making use of the enchantment to ask that Princess Marin be brought to comfort him in his dying hour.    
  
The knight believed he spoke to his own prince, and felt great joy that his heart had softened. He asked leave to take the key to the tower and release the Princess Marin. When the prince confessed he’d lost the key in the dread battle, the knight understood his lord lay on the brink of death - for he saw the tower key hung around the prince’s neck exactly as he expected it to.   
  


_ “Oh no!” _

_ “Did he steal it?” _

  
The sheikah enchantment was so complete that the wise prince carried a conjured key exactly like the one his twin wore. So and so, the knights brought Marin to his side and marveled at the gentleness of their lord on his deathbed.   
  
Meanwhile, the knights of the wise prince discovered they had the wicked prince in their power, for he did not have an enchantment to mask him once they washed away the blood of battle. Together they drew their swords and pierced him at the same moment, so no one afterward could say who slew him.   
  
The enchantment lasted three nights, and on the third morning it faded full away. The wise prince escaped the castle while Princess Marin slept, covering his armor with a vast cloak. He wept when he discovered his brother slain, and laid him out in honor before the castle gate. When the friends and knights of the wicked prince saw what had become, they knew they were defeated. They cast down their weapons and threw themselves on the mercy of the wise prince.    
  
The wise prince spared their lives but took away their titles, lifting up peasants from the field to take the place of the lords, and squires to be knights, bidding them all hereafter to live virtuous lives.    
  
Princess Marin came down from the castle to see her husband buried, and even to weep for him a little. The wise prince spoke with her, and offered her his brother’s castle and all his lands. She asked him boldly why he should go to war with his brother only to give away his prizes. So the wise prince confessed his concern for her, and told her some little stories of his brother’s wickedness.    
  
Princess Marin heard all of this with troubled heart, for though her marriage had not been happy, she loved her children very much, and she treasured her last nights with the wicked prince. So and so, she stayed in the north castle with her children and her strange grief until the year came around again.   
  
The wise prince sent presents of good food, and fine clothes, and toys for the children on every holiday, and prepared gifts even more grand to be sent to them on his birthday. But the Princess Marin surprised him by bringing her family and all her household to the capital instead.   
  
Again the wise prince felt a great longing for her, and went to her in secret to see the truth of her heart. He forgot his resolve the moment he saw her radiance, falling on his knees and asked that she wed him and become his queen. Princess Marin did not answer at once, but let fall her velvet cloak. To his wonder he discovered her belly had grown moon-round, and he kissed her most tenderly.   
  


_ “Was she as big as momma?” _

_ “Bigger, avha. She began to have birth pains that very week, though she hid her condition from all the world but for the wise prince and her closest servants.” _

_ “But - did she say yes hibi?” _

_ “She did.” _

 

They wed in the Temple of Light on the prince’s birthday, and all the realm rejoiced for peace restored.   
  


_ “But what happened to the baby?” _

_ “That, my sweets, is a different story.” _ __  
_ “But hibi - we have to know.”  _ _  
_ __ “Did the prince know if it was his baby?”

_ “Was the baby ok?” _

_ “Did the sheikah come for the baby?” _

_ “Truly, it is a different story, but I will tell you one last thing once you are tucked in properly. You must promise not to be cross with anyone at all tomorrow, no matter how tired you are for staying up so late tonight. Elsewise there cannot be any more of these stories, and you will have to make do with pumpkins and cows and cucco.” _

_ “We promise.” _

_ “Now tell us!” _

  
Queen Marin found great joy with the wise prince, but in little moments and in the small hours when voices of doubt come to everyone, she worried. One night the wise prince urged her to confess, and held her close as she told him how she lay with the wicked prince when he was dying. She made him promise not to punish the child for the sins of its father, and marveled when he swore it easily.    
  
So he confessed in his turn how the sheikah worked a great enchantment to bring a swift end to the brothers’ war. He told her of his surprise to find the magic carry him into his brother’s place, and how the longing of his heart stopped his tongue when she too believed the glamour.    
  
He begged her forgiveness for his promise to the old sheikah woman, but the Queen was untroubled by this. She said she could think of no better nurse, not tutor, nor guardian for her child than the sheikah woman who had made life in the north a thousand times easier than it could have been without her.   
  
And so and so. The Queen kept her child secret, and on the day she began to labor in earnest, the sheikah came to the capital dressed in all honors, and before the whole court she asked the wise prince if he would keep his word. He took her to the Queen’s chambers and when the child was born, they embraced her and wrapped her in the softest blankets of royal purple, and gave her over to the keeping of the sheikah. The sheikah looked on the little princess, and saw her heart and her whole future laid out, and so touched her brow and gave her the name Zelda.   
  


_ “Oh hibi - our Princess Zelda?” _

_ “No avha. Did I not say this story is from long ago tomorrow? There have been many Zeldas, all different. You will like this one. She has many adventures. But first - bedtime. You promised.” _ _  
_ _ “Yes hibi.” _

_ “Goodnight hibi.” _ __  
  


* * *

 

 

_ “Hiraeth.” _

_ “Yes baba?” _

_ “Come - sit with me a moment.” _

_ “Oh. Sorry, it took longer to read to them than I thought.” _

_ “Hn. This-? A bit advanced for the twins, don’t you think?” _

_ “I skipped those parts, baba.” _

_ “Will you skip half the pages? You know your mother and I do not approve of excessive violence. I am concerned that these stories teach the wrong lessons.” _

_ “But baba-” _

_ “Worse, these stories are full of sorcery and deception and-” _

_ “It’s just a story baba. They like adventures and tales of weird and wonderful things. This one is a classic - anyone with any education at all knows these stories. Even scholars read these tales. They have fabulous debates over the translations - it’s an important story. The twins hate lessons - but with these they will be so excited about knights and dragons they will forget they are learning.” _

_ “Hiraeth. Dragons aren’t real.” _

_ “I know baba, but-” _

_ “Magic isn’t real.” _

_ “Baba-” _

_ “I won’t have any of you stuffing your heads with such irrational nonsense. The twins are too young to understand the difference between dreams and truth, but you should know better.” _

_ “But what about the miracles the little Princess has done? And the legends about the saints of Light? The dangers of the lost woods? The power of the spirits?” _

_ “Hiraeth. You are old enough and smart enough to know better than to believe these fanciful lies. There are rational explanations for everything in this world. Only the stupid and those who prey on them believe the world moves by magic.” _

_ “Yes, baba.” _

_ “Good. I don’t want to hear another word in this house about magic.” _

_ “But baba - why is it any different to tell stories about talking animals? Why is that ok and these legends aren’t?” _

_ “Everyone knows animals don’t talk. That would be absurd.” _

_ “What if I tell them - you see baba, the twins love stories about knights. But the only ones I can find that aren’t about the glory of war with real people? They all have magic or monsters or spirits in them. So I thought - at least these legends are about the Zelda the Great. And there’s lots of them, so these would keep the twins busy a long time, even after they learn to read for themselves.” _

_ “Legends are just lies people tell about the past to justify the cruelty and greed of their ancestors.” _

_ “Yes, baba.” _

_ “This is for your own good, Hiraeth.” _

_ “Yes, baba.” _


	4. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 9

Hiraeth is eleven when the village teacher loses her patience with him barely a month into the new year. She says if he thinks he is so smart, then he should be teaching the little ones and let her have some peace while she manages the lessons for everyone else.

The twins think this is a wonderful idea, and he has to bribe them to keep this from their parents. They think this is an even better idea, and demand far too many desserts. Not that he has time to enjoy them anyway: teacher makes sure he has a pile of equations to solve and chapters to read after he is done grading the little ones’ work. 

He is reading the twins another adventure of Zelda the Great when he realizes it’s been half a year since he’s read anything that isn’t for school, except for this. After they go to bed, he skims the next chapter to see how much he will have to change, but is only about the dotty old knight hunting his Questing Beast. 

The twins are old enough they could read the real version of the legends if they wanted, but they are still little enough to prefer being read to. He wonders if they will be angry when they discover the stories he’s had to skip or change, or if his sisters will understand why he had to. He laughs as he returns the tenth volume to its proper shelf, for he can already hear how they will plot to get more sweets from him either way.

Hiraeth is about to light the lamp and settle in to work on the last proof teacher assigned when he hears the visiting bell. No one in this village keeps city hours but his father, and  _ he _ would rather give the twins a hundred rupee and let them loose on market day than call attention to his coming home late. Again. 

“A moment of your time, sir - please, hear me out,” says his teacher downstairs.

“Not interested,” says Link, cold and dangerous. Hiraeth can tell he’s been drinking, but his teacher stops the door closing in her face anyway.

“It’s about your son,” she says quickly. “Please, I had prefer for everyone’s sake not to be discussing this in the street.”

“There is nothing to be discussed,” snaps Link. “Take your bigoted meddling somewhere else.”

“Husband, you are being rude. Forgive him, please - come into the garden. There is a nice breeze,” says his stepmother, a little too brightly. “Tea? Coffee? Wine?”

His teacher demurs, and they say something too low to hear.

Hiraeth edges closer to the window, clicking open the catch. He stands in the darkness, listening to his stepmother’s vain attempts to diffuse the tension.

“Enough,” says Link. “The sooner you make your bloody point, the sooner you can  _ leave _ .”

“Sir. I mean no offense, but something has to be done. I’ve been teaching the children of this village for thirty years, and I taught ten years in the capital before that. I have  _ never _ faced such a challenge as Hiraeth,” she begins.

“I will speak to the mayor. Whatever has been set for your pension, consider it doubled,” said Link. “I will ride to Castletown in the morning to begin interviewing your replacement. Get this scorpion out of my house,  _ wife _ .”

Hiraeth listens to his father’s boots measuring the downstairs room, his stepmother swearing softly in the garden below his window, the click of the cabinet lock.

“He’s not always like this,” says his stepmother. “I’m not sure why tonight-”

“Do not be concerned for my sake,” says his teacher with confidential sort of warmth, entirely removed from her wry manner in the classroom and her deferential, doomed petition. “I have faced a hundred men more wealthy and more arrogant than our  _ celebrated architect _ . My only concern is for my students.”

Hiraeth can barely make out the question which follows, but it has the same shape as his stepmother’s perennial worries. Was there an accident? A fight? Did he cheat?

“Not at all. A few broken slates and spilled lunches are nothing worth remembering,” says his teacher. “The problem is - I’m out of books.”

“Oh no, why didn’t you say before? We will replace everything he’s ruined,” says his stepmother at once.

Hiraeth hammers his fist on his brow in shame that she would think he would destroy  _ one _ book and nevermind hundreds. And on purpose! As if! He knows he is clumsy, but this is too much. 

“I mean when he solves these proofs I have nothing else to assign him,” says his teacher. “I ordered copies of more advanced theorem from the royal archives, but that will only delay the inevitable.”

“I don’t understand,” says his stepmother. “Why not just advance him another grade? He is tall enough to be mistaken for fourteen, why not school him as if he-”

“I’ve done that already,” his teacher cuts in. “I  _ can’t _ advance him any further in maths or natural philosophies or geography or composition with the resources available in this village. He’s on level with some of my oldest students and ahead of the rest. I can order another language course, but I won’t be able to teach myself quickly enough to grade his work.”

“Oh,” says his stepmother.

“You  _ must _ reconsider,” says his teacher. “If you will not take him to the city, at least withdraw your opposition to advancing his studies in history and theol-”

“No - I’m sorry, we can’t,” says his stepmother. “Those things are of no use to a boy of his station - and even if they were, Link won’t change his mind on this. I know my husband. The ban is absolute.”

“Do you realize what you’re doing? An unbalanced education is a dangerous thing,” says his teacher. “He needs to hone his critical thinking, develop a proper sense of scope and scale and substance, cultivate an appreciation for the goddesses’ grand design-”

“Then assign him bigger equations,” says his stepmother. 

“I have,” says his teacher. “That’s why I’ve come. The last proof he turned in should have occupied him for a month, but I can’t find any errors. _ Creative shortcuts _ more appropriate to a royal scholar, but no errors. I cannot set him enough challenges to keep him sharp without desperate measures. Do you realize I’ve had him teaching the lowest grades all year?”

“Oh - but that’s wonderful! Our Hiraeth dotes on his sisters - he is  _ so _ good with children,” says his stepmother.

“Madam - Hiraeth  _ is _ a child. He shouldn’t be teaching anyone - my hand is forced because otherwise there is no way to occupy him for an entire day. Do you understand? He’s only been disruptive to my other students over the years because he is  _ bored _ . Hiraeth needs  _ better _ than the best this village has to offer, and unlike a hundred thousand other families in this world, it  _ is _ within your power to provide it to him,” says his teacher. She leaves no doubt of her intention that Link hear her.

“You’ve said quite enough,” booms his father, throwing open the door to the street. “Now  _ leave _ .”

“Will you hide his light under a stone all his life? Or cannot you see what your  _ decision _ is already doing to your child?” His teacher snaps, marching through the little house to challenge his father direct. “If you  _ want _ him to wreck himself with vice and learn well to hate you before he’s even half grown, continue your present course,  _ sir _ .”

Link slams the door behind her, and a violent silence rushes to fill her wake. Hiraeth cannot stop imagining his father in a towering rage, destroying everything in sight. He cannot stop seeing himself reflected in his teacher’s dire threats. He cannot quell the hunger to know  _ why _ it is forbidden. To learn the things his father is afraid of him knowing.

The house remains quiet, and one by one the lanterns are put out.

The next day, Hiraeth can barely keep his eyes open he is so tired. He could neither sleep nor concentrate on his work, and he is ashamed to pile half-finished assignments on his teacher’s desk.

She hands him a new book of calculation tables, and another of proofs. Both reek of new ink and newer glue. He thanks her, but she says not one word in return.

Hiraeth gets the others started on the day’s reading, and sits down to his own work. He still cannot concentrate - so he surrenders to his curiosity and opens the book of proofs. 

The endpapers and frontispiece promise to deliver the fourth volume of Threnody’s  Infinitums . The third page, however, offers a complicated genealogy chart, and the eighth begins the editor’s notes on the  Chronicles of the Four :  A History of the Lions of Hyrule, Translated into the Modern Vernacular by Decree of the Queen, for the Improvement of the Common Citizen .


	5. Adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 8

Hiraeth pins the last shirt on the clothesline just as his youngest sister comes charging out of the house with the other three not far behind. He catches Saso before she can put her sticky hands on the clean sheets. She shrieks with joy as he swings her up into the air and tucks her upside down under one arm.

“Take them to the orchard, or the stream, or the market - I care not! Somewhere,  _ anywhere _ else for the love of Light,” cries his stepmother from the house. Her belly is moon-round again in the year he is twelve, but he’s overheard the doctor say it might not last. Again. 

Hiraeth bows. “I shall carry them all away a-questing at once my lady. Only have mercy on your brave knights! Bestow upon your favorite champion a token, so it may lift the spirit of your host whensoever they look upon it.”

His stepmother laughs, and draws from the pocket of her sweater a lace handkerchief that has already seen better days. “You are the silliest children. Go on - all of you - follow Hiraeth. Give me an afternoon of peace, and  _ then _ we will think of discussing feast preparations.”

Ishi launches a race to collect the handkerchief, and the twins actually let her win. They steal sticks from the kindling bin, falling in behind her as her loyal squires. The twins cannot, however, resist stopping for a duel or three before he manages to herd them even to the bottom of the garden.

He lifts Saso onto his shoulder and shortly regrets it, for she loves to put her grubby fingers in his short hair. “Thank you, my sweet. How did you know I love wearing jam almost as much as I love eating it?”

Saso squeals in delight.

“Hibi - will you play with us? Baba isn’t home today either,” says Ishi, twirling the handkerchief above her head. “He promised to take us fishing but he’s been gone forever and we’re going to miss all the good weather before he ever comes home and then it will  _ rain _ and I will catch more worms than you this time and I have a hole in my best sirwal but momma is fixing it all better.”

“Play? What is this strange custom your country keeps?” Hiraeth tsks at them, herding them all through the gate.

“ _ Hibi _ ! Don’t be stupid,” groans Myra.

“Can we go swimming hibi?” Kyra adds, swinging her stick at the tall grass.

“No! Story,” shouts Saso.

“How about,” he says, drawing out the word until all his sisters are groaning at him. “ _ Apples _ ?”

The girls cheer.

So they walk to the orchard singing the apple song, with a minor detour to wash in the stream. But that is mostly because of Saso and her jam.

He recites the story of the White Sword while they hunt through the fallen leaves looking for mostly-good apples, and the much-edited one about the Green Knight and the Maiden while they laze about in the dappled shade. 

On the way back they demand to hear again how Zelda the Great met with the envoy from the South Forest, and gained the alliance of the Lady of Flowers. The twins have figured out this really means her future consort and the Great Fairy of his lands, but today they are good and don’t contradict him. Ishi is bored of that story, and keeps interrupting to ask when the Questing Beast will show up. 

So he weaves the two together, embroidering the tale still further with their favorite themes, and every question they pepper him with. It becomes absurd, but they are all laughing, even Saso, who is too little to understand much. 

The twins demand he do the voices - and when his rendition of the Green Knight does not meet their approval, they declare  _ themselves _ to be the Queen’s two best knights, Grenan and Bluthos. So and so - the Questing Beast pursues Zelda across the countryside - or at least through Tambol’s upper pasture - and Hiraeth is too tired to argue when they hit upon the idea of collecting crabapples to battle him with. 

Somewhere between the pasture and the garden, Ishi decides she is bored of being Zelda, and declares herself the Knight of Rorg instead. Hiraeth runs ahead to the garden so they will have a castle to storm, and persuades Saso to sit under the empty laundry basket and be their captive princess this time. With the littlest safely shielded from accidents, the twins turn him into target practice in earnest. He chases Ishi around and around Saso’s basket, roaring and stomping and throwing as many crabapples back at the three knights as he can.

Then Ishi hits on the idea of throwing mud, and Hiraeth is trying to catch her before she can splatter the clean laundry when he sees Link standing under the eave, watching. His face betrays no emotion whatsoever, but his arms are folded over his chest. 

Hiraeth freezes, heart racing, cursing himself for not noticing sooner. How much has he seen? Heard? How can he explain the game without making it worse?

His sisters throw several more volleys before they realize his stillness isn’t part of the game. Kyra sees Link first, dropping her remaining ammunition to run and embrace him. Myra follows shortly after - Ishi lifts up Saso’s basket and declares herself the winner, for she has freed the Princess. 

The twins argue this, completely oblivious to the consequence of their words. They insist they are the true champions, for it was  _ their _ strength that defeated the Monstrous Beast so the Knight of Rorg could even  _ reach _ the laundry-basket tower.

Link says nothing as the argument grows more heated.

“It was a bear,” says Hiraeth in desperation. “The Questing Beast. In the story. Not a monster, a bear. Or maybe a boar. A real thing. Bears, boars. Dangerous to people - and sheep and - we were playing make-pretend, knights and bears. That’s all. Just a game.”

Link says nothing, and at last the twins realize something is wrong. Saso is confused by the silence and she starts crying for her hibi. Ishi tries to shush her.

“It’s true baba,” says Kyra. “Momma was tired and wanted to nap so were just playing an outside game.”

“Sorry about the laundry baba,” says Myra. “We were having fun and forgot.”

“Go inside,” says Link at last.

The twins hurry Ishi and Saso inside, but at least they look over their shoulder at him a few times as they obey. Hiraeth takes one step toward the house.

“Not you,” says Link, unmoving, unmoved.


	6. Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 7

Hiraeth is thirteen when Brother Goro adds twice as many rings to his necklace as usual. His father says he is going to grow a lot this year, and most of his presents turn out to be clothes. Loose trousers cut too long but with drawstrings at the hem so he can tuck them up into his boots. Shirts with seven ells of linen gathered on the too-wide yoke, and all hemmed as long as a nightshirt. Plain vests with laced side panels, and a new sash he has to double over to keep it from dragging the ground when he sits down.

It’s all very boring, but his stepmother confides that it was the same for her when she was young. She promises he will be glad of these things in a few months, and makes  _ him _ promise to be especially careful of his clumsiness in the coming year, and actually go to bed at a reasonable hour. 

Hiraeth spends the rest of the day idling at the traveling carnival with his sisters, spending his birthday rupee on games and sweets and frivolous little amusements. The twins make fun of his terrible scores at every one of the target games and races and tests of strength, but the travelers wink and smile and make sure he hears their little comments about a proud young man’s devotion to his kid sisters. 

They don’t realize he’s only thirteen, and he doesn’t correct them. They don’t know his reputation. They assume he’s losing to the girls on purpose to amuse them.

Hiraeth pretends it doesn’t bother him to be terrible at these things. He is the best mathematician in the whole province, and no one can be good at everything. No one else has headmasters from city academies and priests from rich temples sending letters and servants to petition his father for an audience with ‘the rustic prodigy’.

But no one else has to pretend they  _ don’t _ read and write in seven different languages, either.

He pays for the girls to enjoy a ride on the bored carnival mules, and walks beside Saso on her miniature horse to make sure she doesn’t fall off. Hiraeth knows better than to hire even a gentle draft horse for himself, for he learned years ago he would only manage to fall off at the worst possible moment.

The twins take turns carrying Saso back home, for he is obliged to carry Ishi. She tired herself out running a dozen foot races and fell asleep in the middle of the jugglers’ show. Hiraeth agrees with the twins that it was a good day, hoping that if they all say it enough it will become true.

Not that it was a  _ bad _ day. He can just feel the charm of birthdays has begun to fade exactly as their weird neighbor always said it would. He starts reading them a story of the Wandering Knight and the Quest He Never Completes, but even the twins are yawning by the time the Mysterious Sheikah is reprimanding the wayward Knight. So he marks the page for another night, and goes out to lay on the garden bench and watch the stars come out.

Link joins him an hour before midnight, carrying a couple jars of spiced lemonade and a lumpy parcel. “Thought you might be thirsty after your long walk.”

“Thanks,” says Hiraeth, holding the cool glass against his brow.

“Headache?” Link asks mildly, sitting down on the opposite bench.

“Only a little,” lies Hiraeth. After all, he’s endured worse - and he doesn’t want to be dosed with potion and sent to bed for it.

“Physical strength and skill aren’t everything,” says Link softly. “Try not to measure yourself against farmboys and laborers’ sons.”

“I don’t,” says Hiraeth, drinking his lemonade and biting his tongue against the truth that he is jealous of his little sisters.

“I’ve heard that after summer harvest, some of your classmates will be going to the capital. Apprenticed to the guard, or sponsored into the army,” says Link. “It is not glorious, or exciting, or any of the other things they will say.”

“I know,” says Hiraeth, thinking of the chilling contrast between the Hylian and Holodrun accounts of the Silver War, and the haunting description of the Telado Valley mass graves in the  Memoirs of Harkinian IV .

“It is not a good life,” says Link, as if he has not heard Hiraeth agree. “Do not envy these foolish children.”

“I won’t,” promises Hiraeth.

“War is not the correct or rational answer to disagreements of any kind. We have the good fortune to live in a civilized time, with laws and courts and councils. Violence is the last resort of the impatient, the selfish, the ignorant. You are better than that,” says Link.

“Can I ask you something?” Hiraeth murmurs after a moment.

“You want to know why I say this when I keep a sword,” says Link.

Hiraeth nods because he cannot speak.

“I was born of war, and for it,” says Link with a shrug. “I want better for you.”

Hiraeth nods again, puzzling over his plain words. His stepmother calls Link a coward when they argue, which is often. His sisters don’t seem to notice - or they pretend it doesn’t matter. Even the elders in the village who respect him as an artisan whisper about his desertion when he’s away on another building project. They question the origin of his scars, because he still has both his eyes, because the line on his throat is so thin and clean, because he is alive to bear them.

But cowards make excuses. They boast of what they would have done after the danger is over. They exaggerate their strength and skill from a safe distance. They glorify violence as Link never does.

Little things like this, unadorned, cryptic statements dropped only when they are alone feel like a page bound in the middle of the wrong book. 

“Anyways, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” says Link, finishing his jar of lemonade.

“Sure,” says Hiraeth, watching the slow drift of the wandering stars and trying to resist the nameless, selfish hunger that rises every time his father lets slip another shard of his past.

“The Zora who just moved here. You have seen him?” Link asks.

“Yeah. I heard he’s some kind of musician on holiday,” says Hiraeth, sitting up to finish his lemonade. “Are you really building him a giant bathtub?” 

“Hn. Not quite,” says Link with a lopsided grin. “But we do have a - business arrangement. And there is one present you haven’t opened yet.”

Hiraeth frowns as his father stands to light the six little garden lamps. The orange-gold light seems strange and ominous, but his father is  _ almost _ smiling. He gestures at the forgotten parcel, folding his arms.

The strange oblong shape rings softly when he unties the dusty ribbons. The sweet twanging sound stops his breath and seizes his heart as if he’s caught in a giant’s fist. His hands shake as he unfolds the layers of plush wool and quilted silk to unveil the relic they guard.

The polished amberwood cittern looks more like a confection than an instrument, with delicate whorls of silver filigree and mother-of-pearl inlaid. Even the delicate strings seem gilded in the flickering lamplight, and Hiraeth is almost afraid to touch them.

“Go on,” murmurs Link. 

Hiraeth holds his breath, brushing his thumb across the bridge. The shimmering harmony sounds the way it feels to swim in the rapids in the stream above the village on a hot summer afternoon.

“I don’t know how to play it,” whispers Hiraeth.

“We can fix that,” says Link with a strange kind of melancholy thinness in his voice.


	7. Stranger

Hiraeth is nearly fourteen, and his stepmother is right about everything. He eats and eats until his stomach feels like it might burst, but it’s never enough. Hunger becomes his closest companion, and he feels strange to look  _ down _ at nearly everyone in the village. Only his music tutor and his stepmother are measurably taller anymore.

To his enduring shame, every inch makes him clumsier, until half the dishes have to be replaced he’s dropped them so many times. He leaves his cittern with his tutor, or ‘lets’ one of his sisters carry it for him when he must bring it home.

The provincial regiment organizes a kind of parade through all the villages, and Ishi gets caught sneaking out to see them. Their parents try threats and forbidding sweets and grounding from all amusements but nothing persuades her out of her fascination. In despair, Link locks her in her room and goes down to the camp at the next village in hopes of persuading the officers to move on.

Ishi picks the lock, and sneaks out anyway. Three days they hunt for her in the village and the forest, only to find her in a stolen cadet’s uniform among the soldiers, making horrendous noises with the regimental bugle.

It is decided that all of the children will have music lessons.

Letters from city academies and temples have never stopped coming, but now there are also couriers in blue tunics bearing red envelopes with gold scrollwork. These messages, Link burns without even opening. Hiraeth wonders where they are from and why they are worse than the other letters.

Then, a week after planting, a royal herald comes to their little village. He rides an elegant gray horse, and the four shining guardsmen with him ride matched chestnut destriers with roached manes and blue barding with thread-of-gold ornament. Link stands on the front steps to open  _ this _ red-and-white-and-gold envelope, his lips moving as he reads the ornate script. 

Hiraeth watches from the garden wall as his father rips the letter into bits and throws it in the herald’s face. The guardsmen look at each other like they expect one of the others to know what to do about this insult. 

The herald makes the mistake of calling Link a traitor to his face.

Hiraeth will lay awake all night, trying to make sense of what he sees next. Or rather - what he  _ doesn’t _ see. One moment the strangers are standing around his father, and the next the horses have bolted down the street and the strangers are picking themselves up out of the mud and scrambling after their fallen pikes.

Link steps down into the road, raising his voice for half the village to hear his challenge. “Have I broken any  _ rightful _ law? Have I been tardy even once to pay my tax to the crown? Crawl your way back to the castle and tell him this: I serve Hyrule from my first breath to my last, but I would sooner drown the world than open  _ that door  _ to your  _ bloody _ empire.”


	8. Riot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T - 6

Hiraeth is nearly fifteen, and there are only four buildings in the village he doesn’t have to duck to enter. One is their own little house, two are barns, and the last is the temple. His voice is changing without asking him about it first, and over the winter the headaches get so bad he can barely see.

When Link is home, he forces himself to go to school anyway, even if the best he can manage is assigning the younger students a ridiculously flawed proof to fix and a hundred pages of reading before he has to retreat to comforting darkness of the storage room.

Link is away working on some kind of bridge project in the lowlands when the worst storm he can remember hammers the little village. The ground is already sodden, and the road turns into a mudslide. Two houses and three shops in the village are pushed off their foundations, and Hiraeth hides in his bedroom with the curtains drawn. Even when the rain stops and he begins to feel normal again, his stepmother urges him to stay back, and makes him pot after pot of a strange kind of sour tea. 

He goes back to school mostly so he can get away from her hovering. And the tea. 

He bribes the twins to handle the youngest students, and prompts the middle ranks into a debate over the significance of the wolf and the ‘night goer’ in early chaos era epic poetry. The teacher swears at him when the discussion turns into an outright war, but it’s the funniest thing he’s seen in months and he can’t bear to stop them. 

Half an hour later the entire room has split into ideological factions over it. The teacher gives up on restoring order to the class, sitting back in her chair with her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing. The ringleaders of each are threatening their opponents with  _ literal _ violence and their insults have gone from creative to obscene, so at last he stands and bellows for silence.

It works exactly long enough for the teacher to issue a strangled dismissal.

Hiraeth’s sisters look at him oddly, and don’t wait for him to pack his own things. The teacher manages to stifle her laughter just long enough for the rest of the students to leave.

“Be honest, Hiraeth,” she says, stern as she can manage through her snickering. “Did you start that riot apurpose?”

“If what you mean is, ‘ _ can I do it again _ ’ then perhaps my students should move their lessons outside for the sake of the furniture,” he says, though it comes out as a bit of a rumble. 

“Your talents are  _ wasted _ on this life,” she says, shaking her head. “Anyone who can rouse that much passion for archaic poetry in a bunch of half-grown rustics has no business idling in a backwater village for any longer than it takes to change a broken cart wheel and buy a hearty dinner.”

Hiraeth shrugs. “My father does not approve of big cities.”

“Bullshit,” says his teacher, folding her arms. “I made inquiries years ago. Everything your family has is because of the connections he has  _ in _ and work he does  _ for _ the big city.”

“No doubt half the reason he hates it so much,” says Hiraeth, returning his books to the locked chest in the storage room.

His teacher follows, leaning against the doorframe. “What’s the other half?”

He shrugs, accepting the excuse to linger in the comfortable darkness. “Why does anyone ever hate anything?”

“Barring madness and the influence of demons? Betrayal, usually,” says his teacher with a frown of confusion. 

Hiraeth rolls his eyes at her. “Demons are just a convenient fiction to justify the acts of tyrants.”

“When you  _ do _ go to the city someday, take care who overhears your heresies,” she returns.

“I had the kids on the verge of a brawl over artistic symbolism before noon. Imagine what I could do with a few choice words in a city marketplace,” he says with a shrug. “A little riot now and again might be good for this country.”

“The revolution might want to bide his time until his voice is done breaking,” she says with a wry shake of her head.

Hiraeth makes a rude noise. “Even so. A monarch whose authority flows from the divine must always be right.  _ I _ need only be right  _ once _ .”

She clicks her tongue at him. “What have I told you about quoting assassins in the classroom?”

“We aren’t  _ in _ the classroom,” he says, wagging a finger at her. “Anyways, why should I give a good goddamn about offending a spoiled old man in a fancy hat when I have five sisters who would each of them cheerfully murder me in my bed for an extra slice of cake and a bolt of Cloudisle silk?”


	9. Chain

Spring is tardy and sodden in the year Hiraeth will turn fifteen. Nobody bothers to try fixing the buildings damaged in the mudslides, because the rain and sleet never stop for more than a day or two. Everyone moves into their upstairs rooms or their attics, and the mayor leaves to petition the crown for aid. Food prices triple, and his stepmother is making gifts of flatbread for half the village because they’re the only house with a stockpile of flour.

Rumor says drought holds the western lowlands, and the little temple at the top of the village is packed every Lightsday with people begging the distant gods to give their share of rain to another province. Leela is grounded for telling the neighbors they’re stupid, and Saso is grounded for building a mud sled obstacle course of the main street and charging her friends two rupee each to race down it.

The twins counter  _ their _ boredom by digging out their entire collection of fashion plates and adornments and cosmetics, dragging Ishi with them into their expensive obsession with city fashions. Neither owns the patience to actually finish new costumes for their poppets, and nevermind themselves, but at least most of their chaos stays in their room.

Hiraeth _tries_ to redirect their focus, but they claim to have misplaced their study notes and  _ accidentally _ left their essay drafts in the garden where they got rained on. So he offers to recopy their papers cleanly  _ if _ they can prove they are prepared for the looming exam cycle.

They seize the opportunity to make poppets of each other while he quizzes them on Labrynnan cases and spellings and conjugations, percentages and remainders, Old High Hylian declensions and esoteric vocabulary, provincial exports and noble begats. 

Myra’s answers are salted with complaints that Ishi fidgets too much, but at least she whines in passable Labrynnan. Kyra interrupts his questions to complain of their limited and unfashionable wardrobe, wailing about the unfairness of it all. Only with a great deal of prompting does she manage to translate her laments without making egregious errors. 

Ishi recites  _ her _ answers cheerfully enough, but as soon as the twins are moderately satisfied with her braids and cosmetics, she drags a pile of old curtains from the mending basket and proceeds to make a poppet of  _ him _ . The twins argue which color suits him least poorly, dragging out their own bright shawls and ribbons to further improve his appearance. But - at least they are getting  _ most _ of their calculations correct.

“You are  _ impossible _ hibi,” complains Kyra, flinging herself dramatically onto one of the fat floor cushions. “ _ Nothing _ suits you. You’re too dark, and too serious, and too  _ tall _ . It shouldn’t be allowed.”

“I dunno, the red looked kinda nice,” counters Ishi, holding the faded velvet curtain up to his face.

Myra makes a face. “It’s fancy enough but - it’s the wrong  _ kind _ of red. He’s so much darker than us - he needs big colors to match.  _ Pure _ colors. But his  _ hair _ -! Ugh.”

“My hair is fine,” he says. “Second most important exports from the Lake District by revenue and then by volume?”

“It is  _ not _ fine,” whines Myra. “It’s stupidly bright and won’t even all lay in the same direction and-”

“Maybe we could wax it flat,” says Kyra.

“You are  _ not _ putting wax in my hair,” he says with a glare which impresses exactly none of them. “The exports, avha?”

“Smoked voltfin and bonemeal,” groans Myra. “What if we  _ braid _ it?”

“Too short,” says Ishi, wrinkling her nose.

“Not if we do spinebraids,” says Kyra, rolling over to prop her chin on her fist. “It could work if they’re  _ really _ small. And then! We could weave festival curls on.”

Ishi squeals in delight.

Hiraeth rolls his eyes. “How about  _ not _ . Mom would have a cat. Now, same question, Northwestern headlands?”

“Oh come on hibi - we need to practice so we can  _ all _ wear curls this year. You remember how she complained just doing ours last time,” counters Myra. “We don’t have to weave them all over. Just enough.”

“You conspire to make me ridiculous,” he grumps, though secretly he wonders what it would be like. To be fancy. To have a reason to buy bright ribbons for himself. To wear golden hair clasps and polished gems on his brow.

“But imagine hibi,” says Myra, reaching up to draw an arc from hairline to nape. Even sitting lotus-fashion on the floor, he is taller than all of them. “If we weave down the middle, you could part it down the center to wear loose,  _ or _ you could pull it into a horsetail. And then for tomorrow we could do a big  _ fat _ plait out of it kinda like that cockscomb the mayor’s son had when he came back from Death Mountain. Only  _ better _ .”

“And you know the one color we haven’t tried?  _ Black _ ,” says Kyra, scrambling to her feet and racing out of the room with Ishi on her heels, screeching about getting some other unnamed thing.

“Da hates black,” mutters Hiraeth as Myra starts combing fragrant palm grease into his short hair. 

Myra made a rude noise. “Like Da is even going to be home before Woolsday. Scrunch down so I can reach.”

“Maybe you need a box to stand on,” teases Hiraeth, but he does as she asks. 

It feels strange to have anyone tugging on his hair - Link works so quickly with comb and razor to keep his hair trimmed now he barely even feels it. It gets weirder still when Kyra and Ishi return and help weave the glossy dark copper locks through his tight little braids.

They persuade him into the worn black sweater they found, and argue over which bright shawl looks most fetching with it. Hiraeth doesn’t bother giving an opinion, because his entire capacity for reason is occupied with the mysteriously perfect old sweater and the unfamiliar jewels they’ve dumped in his lap. 

The only thing they will say about any of it is that it was ‘in the blue and gold box’. This could mean anything or nothing - most of the brass-bound storage trunks in the house are blue. The only notable exceptions are a carved and inlaid thornwood chest at the foot of his stepmother’s bed, and a few worn chests in the attic so old they couldn’t really be described as any color at all.

“It’s still not right,” whines Ishi. “Too plain. Needs buttons!”

“He  _ needs _ kohl and alabaster,” counters Kyra, grabbing the tray of cosmetics.

“White is  _ too _ bright - use blue. Opposite of his eyes, to disguise those shadows,” says Kyra. “You should mind your beauty sleep, hibi.”

“ _ Purple _ is opposite of gold,” whines Ishi. “Blue is  _ stupid _ \- look, the nightshade overshot is the best blue in the whole pile but with black it’s  _ gross _ .”

“But we don’t  _ have _ purple. Anyways I think you have to be noble to buy it, even in the cities,” says Kyra. “We could use the russet powders. On him it would be a lot softer.”

“Close your eyes or I might poke you,” says Myra, threatening him with the kohl sticks. “We’ll pick the color after the lines are done. Don’t fidget either, or it’ll come out crooked.”

Hiraeth sighs for dramatic effect, and endeavors to hold his position as they ask him to. The cosmetics feel gummy and warm. Their little fingers smudging it into his lashes and adjusting the sweep of their lines are confident and strong. They don’t drop their tools even once. He forgets he is supposed to be testing them.

“What about - green? To match the jewels,” he mumbles, interrupting another argument about the proper shade for him.

Kyra dabs a little malachite on his lids, and steps back. All three of them make the gross sound in unison - and Ishi suggests trying gold instead. They don’t have gold powders, only a gold lip cream, likely stolen from their mother. They paint this on his eyelids, and smudge a bit along his cheekbones, dusting it with mica powder.

Hiraeth finds the brushes ticklish and the subtle weight of the pigments distracting. They paint and argue for at least an hour, and he decides their love of elaborate artifice is far too much work. The dark kohl is especially startling, and he can’t decide if he likes the effect. The festival curls tickle when they brush his cheek, his ear, the back of his neck - and his reflection looks so incredibly strange. Not himself at all, but a glittering stranger.

The sweater though. The tiny smooth stitches are worked in the softest wool he’s ever handled, with six polished onyx buttons marching down a tidy placket. Though the cuffs are stretched out and frayed, someone went to the effort of stitching up the little snags and whipping around the ragged edges with yarn that almost matched. Little bits of crumbling sage and lavender cling to the fabric, and though it stinks of cedar oil and it’s far too wide, it’s so comfortable against his skin he resolves to steal it for good, no matter where they found it. 

And the jewels-! He wonders if they were some part of the wedding costume when his parents married. Perhaps the enameled and gem-encrusted snake forms have some significance to the Gerudo idea of religion. That could easily explain why he’s never seen them before - and the tangled little green snakes with the hidden bells  _ are _ somewhat delicate. The mass of the wide pectoral is cleverly hinged in dozens of places, and the wristlets as well. 

To his surprise, the pieces are large enough even for him, the pectoral sitting wide of his forged chain necklace and the wide bracelets hanging loose. He wonders if the wristlets are meant to be an arm cuff instead - except the girls produce a pair of jeweled golden cobra undeniably sized for  _ that _ purpose. They fuss at him for being too thin to keep the green-eyed cobra where they belong, oblivious to the implication of those ornaments.

Hiraeth is the largest human he’s ever heard of, and these are  _ not _ Goron designs.

The stairs creak as the girls argue over what to do with the earloops when he hasn’t any piercings, and how to most fetchingly arrange the little hair clasps and curious brow ornament. Sharp-edged ice blooms in his gut. He didn’t hear the front door open. He didn’t hear any warning at all. Hiraeth opens his eyes, heart racing. 

Link stands in the open doorway, a heavy stack of papers in his left fist. His cold blue eyes sweep over the tableaux and back to Hiraeth.

The girls don’t notice.

“I didn’t expect-” begins Hiraeth.

“Do you think I’m  _ stupid _ ?” Link speaks softly, but his furious presence floods the chaotic little room.

The girls freeze.

Ishi recovers from the surprise first. “We were just taking a little break from studying. We’ll clean it all up tomorrow, promise. After the test. Right?”

The twins agree, cheeks bright and green eyes darting from piles of fashion plates to heaped cloth and scattered cosmetic pots.

“Did you  _ really _ think you would get away with this?” Link stares only at Hiraeth, crinkling the papers in his fist.

“Oh  _ baba _ \- we were  _ going _ to put it all back,” whines Ishi. “We didn’t break  anything and the smudges will come out when it’s all washed anyway.”

“We just thought - see, Leela and Saso are with Mom at the neighbors’ house. With bread,” begins Kyra.

“We were practicing,” says Myra, fidgeting with the kohl sticks. “He’s helping us study. For the test. Labrynnan vocabulary, and there’s a maths exam soon too, and a whole list of - baba,  _ please _ . It’s  _ really _ boring, so we were just-”

“What have I said about  _ lies _ in this house?” Link strides into the room, thrusting the papers toward them.

Kyra hisses and nudges Myra. Their eyes go wide as they realize it’s their schoolwork in his fist.

“It’s mostly busywork,” says Hiraeth with a deliberate shrug. He pretends he’s calm. He pretends he’s not torn between irrational terror and baseless rage. “None of them are really  _ learning _ anything with the weather like this - and their handwriting  _ is _ atrocious. I was just-”

“How long has this been going on? Months?  _ Years _ ? Have you no shame?” Link glowers down at them, and for a moment Hiraeth is certain he will strike them with the offending papers. 

“But baba - what does it hurt if we have a little fun first and study after?” Ishi whines. “It’s not fair. School is  _ boring _ .”

Link works his jaw in silence for a moment, and Hiraeth scrambles for words through the fog of his wicked imaginings. He can’t stop seeing Link striking out in fury. Himself striking back. His sisters cowering in fear. Blood. Storm. Darkness. 

“Fair! I will show you  _ fair _ ,” growls Link.

The girls shriek in despair as he stalks to the little iron stove in the corner of the room and stuffs the papers inside. Hiraeth tries to scramble to his feet but the red velvet curtain is somehow tangled around him, and he ends up on his hands and knees instead.

“Out,” bellows Link, gesturing to the door. “Go - tell your mother what you’ve done. Beg  _ her _ for mercy, if you dare. Confess to  _ her _ how her daughters are so easily led to lie and cheat and steal.”

“But baba-” begins Ishi, for the twins are blubbering over the stove and the loss of all the schoolwork he’s done or recopied for them.

“I said  _ out _ ,” shouts Link. 

The girls flee in tears as Hiraeth struggles to undo all the knots and ribbons and pins securing the faded red velvet.

“As for  _ you _ ,” rasps Link, looming over him, hands balled into fists. “You are old enough to know better than to think this bullshit  _ acceptable _ .”

“Father - I can explain,” he begins. “It doesn’t hurt anything but their handwriting if I help them. The important thing is if they know the  _ substance _ of the lesson-”

“You have done  _ every _ harm taking advantage of their innocent trust, leading them into lawless chaos,” says Link. “I should have known Ishi didn’t figure out how to pick locks on her own.”

Hiraeth swallows hard. He’s never picked a single lock - his clumsiness is infamous in the village - why would he even try? The only things he can do with any grace are entirely of the mind: writing and calculating, speaking and singing. He is getting better with the cittern - slowly. He still doesn’t dare carry it farther than the next room.

“I was going to put them back,” he stammers. “I thought - I’ve never seen Mom wear these, I didn’t think she’d miss them for one day. It made the twins happy - you know how much they adore pretty things. The winter’s been hard for them.”

“Do you really think I’m that stupid?” Link asks, his voice tight and dangerous.

Hiraeth wonders again where the girls found the snake jewels and the fine black sweater, and if they were locked away in the same place. He knows Link won’t believe him if he tells the truth, and even if he could persuade his father, that would only make him more angry at the girls.

“No baba,” whispers Hiraeth, noticing too late the curved little knife in his father’s left hand.

“I should have curbed your willfulness long ago, and that is my error to answer for,” says Link, flat and cold. “Take it off. All of it.  _ Now _ .”

Hiraeth fumbles to strip the jewelry off, piling it on the forgotten square of faded green silk. He struggles to keep his breath even, to smother his anxious imaginings, to ignore the churning in his stomach.

Link steps over the pile and grasps the bright festival curls in his fist.

Hiraeth kneels in painful stillness as his father slices through the tight little spinebraids. Handfuls of copper false curls and shreds of his own fiery hair tumble to the floor. He tries not to cry - but at least he manages to stay silent.

When it is done, Link orders him to his feet and out of the house. The twilight presses heavy on him, and he hears the cabinet lock snap as he stumbles into the muddy street. He doesn’t understand why Link is so furious, but he wonders if this is it. If this time his wickedness has finally brought the formless doom that haunts his sleepless nights. If his father is casting him into the wilderness to live or die by his own wits. If his father will follow him with that little knife. If -

“Get up,” snaps Link. “Unless you have a great desire to  _ crawl _ to Goro’s forge.”

“No baba,” says Hiraeth, biting back his questions. It is still several months to his birthday - and they always visit Brother Goro in the mornings. Never at night. How will they manage the path in the dark?

The answer proves to be: badly. Hiraeth is muddy from toe to crown by the time he sees the warm red light of Goro’s forge ahead. His trousers are torn, and he can barely breathe through the heartsickness and redoubled headache. Link has not said a word - and worse, has resolutely stayed out of sight behind him. 

Has he sinned so deeply his father will take back the necklace and disown him? 

“What brings you in this damp hour little brother?” Goro booms from his seat in the banked forge. Smoke curls from his wide nose, and the whole building stinks of bombflower pollen. 

Hiraeth bows, uncertain what to say. 

“I don’t know much about human customs,” says Goro, chewing on his metal pipe. “But you look different, little guy. Taller maybe.”

Hiraeth gestures helplessly to whatever remains of the cosmetics and his ragged hair. “Wasn’t my idea.”

“The hell it wasn’t,” snaps Link. He stalks to the forgestone and puts the box of bones and rings and stones in the middle of it.

“Oh,” says Goro, brows furrowed. He rocks back against the coals and savors his pipe. “Bit early for more isn’t it?”

“It’s past time,” says Link without turning. “Forge the rest.”

Hiraeth stares at his father’s back in disbelief. Last year there were still piles of tiny bits of steel and beads in the box. It doesn’t make sense. Moments ago he was in a towering rage - and he’s  _ still _ furious. He’s even belted on his sword. Why? Animals in the woods? If he meant to punish his wayward son, better he had done that first, surely?

But - that many rings would have to mean bracelets. Would mean he’s somehow in one disastrous evening crossed the invisible boundary of childhood.

“All of them? That’s a heavy burden for the little guy,” rumbles Goro with a frown. 

“All,” says Link. 

Hiraeth watches Goro work, weighing the silence between them. Near dawn he notices his father is drinking pale golden spirits directly from a faceted bottle, and he wonders if the bracelets are only a question of pride. So he can die as a man.

By the time Goro hammers the last pin into place, Hiraeth feels numb. The weight of the chains is nothing. The silence is nothing. The reek of sulphur and bombflower pollen is nothing. But - his father is sitting beside the door of the forge, head cradled in his hands.

Hiraeth realizes he’s never seen Link  _ pay _ Brother Goro for this task. A hundred thousand other menial little things - fixing the pothook and the shovel and honing his chisels. But never for this.

Goro douses the little forge and sets the special tools in a neat line to cool. He claps Hiraeth on the shoulder so hard he almost falls off the bench. “You doing ok little guy?”

“Yeah,” lies Hiraeth, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

_Sleeve._

Link let him keep the soft black sweater - didn’t say a word about it. 

Hiraeth stares at the fine - if now incredibly dirty - cloth in confusion. Why  _ this _ , and nothing else?

Brother Goro crosses the forge and shoos Link outside, but Goron are not a quiet people. “Little brother - you can’t keep this up forever.”

“I don’t need forever,” says Link, voice rough. “Only long enough.”

“You’re going to lose him if you don’t open your heart,” says Goro. “The boy needs his father.”

“Then the gods should have given him one,” says Link bitterly.

Goro sighs like a broken bellows. “Little ones are hard going, little brother. But you gotta let em know who you are, or they never learn to know themselves.”

“Din forbid I should pour darkness into a place of Light,” recites Link softly, like someone remembering a dream.


	10. Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T - 5

The little house trembles - not from storm or earthshake, but the horrible empty silence. Hiraeth presses his back tight to the wall, listening. The fight seems to be over, but he cannot tell how it ended. There is no wind this morning - if they left the door open, how would he even know if they left?

He is still wedged between his bed and the empty shelves, filled with echoes of helpless rage. Or - not so helpless? What if one of them did something -  _ bad _ ? No, surely not - they’ve fought a hundred thousand times before. It’s always worked out before. It is only his own wickedness. Only the consequence of too many fanciful stories. Too many nightmares he can never quite remember in the morning.

Everything that can be packed, everything they can send ahead to Castletown is already gone. They are supposed to leave after breakfast, his stepmother driving the two-wheeled gig, he and the twins in the rented ox-cart with the last few chests. His father is supposed to ride beside them, armed with crossbow and sword, scouting road and field - but Link is still blind drunk, hours after dawn. 

Hiraeth turns the dusty golden puzzle box in his hands. The men who brought the cart up carried also rumors of bandits and ghosts and wild creatures, and everyone knows the Zora have raised the toll on their smooth sculpted roads in the aftermath of the heavy winter rains. 

Hiraeth is more afraid of breaking the puzzle box than these nebulous dangers. He’s never been allowed more than half a day’s walk from the village before, but he’s read every book his teacher smuggled for him, and spent countless hours absorbing the maps of Hyrule and her neighbors. He could draw any of them from memory, could recite piles of trivial facts about almost any civilized country in the world if he wanted to.

But he cannot remember which order the trigger points should go in, and the hidden springs creak and grind with age. He cannot remember which parts are made to twist, and in which direction. 

How could he fail to measure the years slipping by? Days and months and seasons, birthdays and festivals. He is taller and his voice still startles him sometimes when his own words rumble off his tongue like a grindstone laughing. He can remember watching his sisters grow, his stepmother wax round with child.

His father never changes.

How could he  _ not notice _ ?

His stepmother used to say how lucky she was to have a pretty husband. That his scars lent him dignity, made him even more interesting and handsome. Even when she was angry, she used to say he should take better care of himself to preserve that very beauty.

Now she is bitter, and certain he will be unfaithful when they move to the city, as if he has not spent half their marriage working in one city or another. Now she yells at him for coming out unscathed on the other side of a night of hard drinking. Now she accuses him of hiding his own witchblood from her, and demands to know what else he hides. She demands he explain why after so many years he uproots the family and drags them away from a good life in their village.

His father denies none of it, only shouts that she knows nothing about anything, that she is become a nibbling, venomous shrew, that his past is not her concern, that she has no right to question his decisions.

Hiraeth cradles the fragile little puzzle box in his clumsy hands. He wonders how his sisters manage to sleep through their parents’ arguments, or if they only make pretend to hear nothing. If they too are listening to the silence, trying not to imagine what they will find if they go downstairs before they are summoned.

The golden summer morning at last overthrows off the blue cast of dawn. It glares at him through the naked window, catching on the ridges and grooves of the gilt puzzle box. The longer he stares at the dense ornamental carvings, the more he begins to find the suggestions of words in the pattern. 

Hiraeth frowns at the box, licking his thumb and rubbing grime away from one corner. He remembers the seals of the three golden goddesses flank the corners, but he curses himself for never examining the borders linking them to the six-petal flower in the center of each face. He pretends he is trying to make sense of a messy student’s lesson, muttering the possible letters in sequence until he pieces together a word. 

Then another. 

_ Let this my desire bear the might of the oldest gods - no work of man nor magic may break it. _ __  


Hiraeth finds the same inscription encircling each of the eight corners. But - what desire is the archaic inscription meant to guard?

And why did his father give him a puzzle engraved with superstitious nonsense?


	11. Aim

Another autumn morning dawns cold, but at least the castle walls shield the royal archery range from the vicious wind. Zelda recites a prayer of thanks to Nayru for holding back the rain during practice today, and tries to feel properly grateful. It is hard to feel generous about anything in the third hour of dawn, and harder yet when she is weighed down under twelve layers of silk.

She tells herself to be grateful for the warmth of last night’s ballgown, and draws the bowstring to her ear.

“Stop. You are leaning into the weight of your sleeve. Reset and do it again.” Impa folds her arms over her broad chest, red eyes sharp as her words.

Zelda closes her eyes, and does  _ not _ make a face at her governess and bodyguard and closest friend. She is twelve, and old enough to know better than to indulge such childish fits of temper. She lowers her bow. She breathes. She centers. She reminds herself that Ulus promised fruit tarts for breakfast today if she could sink sixty arrows in the red.

“Better. Again, but at full draw this time,” says Impa. The sheikah is always stern in lessons, but somehow it is harder to bear this morning.

“Can you not hear the fabric strain? I will tear seams for certain if I try,” says Zelda, selecting another flawless arrow fletched in white and blue. 

“Do not  _ try _ ,” says Impa mildly.

Zelda recites a silent prayer to Farore for strength, sighting down arrow forty-eight. She misses the target completely. The shaft explodes into a thousand splinters when it strikes the white granite wall beyond.

“Not ideal, but if the enemy happens to have a squire or servant with him, he will surely be inconvenienced hereafter,” teases Impa.

“I wouldn’t miss at all if you just let me wear proper gear,” grumbles Zelda. None of the guards would be shocked to see Impa’s silent apprentice in the royal gardens, and the entire court knows the crown princess often rises late and retires early since her mother died years ago. Everyone agrees it is hard for a maiden to lose her mother, and how much worse for the shy, pious, bookish princess?

“If war possessed the manners to stay on the other side of fences and walls and restrict its savagery to battlefields and wastelands, a great many soldiers would be out of work. Again, and remember to breathe into the shot.”

Zelda frowns, rejecting an arrow with spoiled fletching and choosing another. “I am breathing as much as the damn stays permit.”

“Language.”

Zelda rolls her eyes, and sinks a twenty-fourth bullseye. “The Zora princess is allowed to swear.”

“ _ She _ is thirty-five and confirmed as the anointed priestess of their god. Another.”

Zelda hears a thread pop with arrow fifty-three, and lets the bolt fly with a snarl of decidedly unladylike fury. It sinks through the pithy wood so near the edge it opens a crack across the outer white ring of the target board.

“Good. He’s lost the use of his sword arm. Press your advantage at once,” says Impa.

Zelda groans, hitching her sleeve a little higher so maybe it won’t tear any worse. “And what if this imaginary assassin should be left-handed? Now he is angry, and will charge at me, and I cannot run in all this nonsense.”

“Not  _ today _ perhaps, as your father expects you to make an appearance at lunch. The Labrynian envoy wishes to convey her gratitude for your intercession with the rain spirits, and I count sixty-seven still in this basket. At this rate you will barely have time to wash and dress.”

Zelda begs Nayru for patience, and Din for mercy as she sights the fifty-fourth. “Father will have a cat if I ruin all my dancing shoes running the training circuit.”

Impa snorts. “I didn’t know you were on speaking terms again.”

“We aren’t,” says Zelda after arrow sixty, waiting for the deaf pageboy to pull and sort the bolts into the brightly dyed baskets. Only twenty eight have hit the red center. “You are always saying the sacred maiden must set the highest standard. It is wasteful to ruin expensive court dress wearing it for the wrong purpose when there are thousands of peasants lucky to own two outfits at all.”

“All the more reason to practice  _ not _ ruining it,” says Impa, picking up the little pile of flawed arrows. “War does not obey borders and social schedules. A queen must be prepared to defend herself and her country at any hour, in any circumstance.”

Zelda scowls, snatching the bundle of arrows from Impa’s hands, fitting three between her gloved knuckles and loosing them all at once. The pageboy cowers behind the old yeoman’s shield at the edge of the range as she hammers three volleys into the board. None strike red, but six of the nine thunk solidly into the painted wood.

Impa coughs, but Zelda sees how the stoic sheikah’s red eyes crinkle at the corners. When she can sink all nine, Impa will smile for certain. If she can cluster them close to the heart, maybe she will even laugh.

“Everything about the civil war has been wasteful and stupid from the day it began. Father will never have the respect of other kings and chiefs when the whole council behaves badly. Barons who do not listen to the crown should not  _ be _ barons anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited to add:
> 
> Meet Zelda!  
> She’s not a very nice twelve year old. Her experience of the world is somewhat limited and hugely biased at this time, so you probably won’t like her much right now. She will say and do things I certainly don’t approve of, but rest assured her flaws are part of the plot. It’s uncomfortable to have a major point of view character being a jerk. 
> 
> If you ever need a little spoiler or two to have faith in this last story of the series (I know, it’s been so hard!!) please feel free to send me a private message on tumblr - you’ll find me as StudioRat there too!


	12. Balance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T-5

The expensive water clock in the main office drips and clicks through another three full cycles. Hiraeth tries to ignore it, but his eyes hurt from the glare of noon light magnified and distorted by too many garishly expensive mullion windows. He aches from kneeling at the ridiculously low desk all morning. 

Still, he checks his numbers a third time and sands his report twice just to be certain against smudges. He tries to be careful when he stands, and he does manage to catch the ink bottle before it can tumble completely from its little well. It spoils the desk - but doesn’t splash his papers. 

He breathes a reflexive prayer of thanks to spirits he hasn’t believed in since he was small enough to hide in kitchen cupboards, and wipes his hands on the dark flannel handkerchief he always carries in his coat for emergencies like this. He slips his gloves back on before he dares touch his report, but when he carries it to the head clerk he catches his reflection in the mirror in the little man’s office. He’s gotten ink on his best blue waistcoat, and tugging his red scarf askew only hides half of it. 

The clerk does not notice. He turns pages, squinting as if he suspects to find something hiding between the crisp Hylian letters. “I can appreciate your precision, young Hiraeth, and you are swift enough with your figures I can forgive some of your rustic habits while you adjust to life in Castletown. But if I agree to take you on as my apprentice, you must learn that while this paltry sum may have been significant in your home village, a discrepancy of two rupee is a _rounding error,_ not a crime.”

“With all due respect Vah Dano, I cannot agree. The deviation in these account books are consistently within an otherwise allowable tolerance of error, and if you will compare the figures for laundry soap and roasted hops, although the _measure_ and _value_ are different, the numerical units are the same. You might expect a steward poor at maths to make the same exact _numerical_ error but-”

“Perhaps you do not appreciate the motivation for attentive arithmetic that three hundred rupee can evoke,” says Dano, but he lays the two pages side by side, frowning. “I admit you’ve found the ledgers imperfect. But five rupee is hardly significant.”

“I cannot agree,” says Hiraeth, reminding himself not to growl and give himself away as an uncultured provincial. “In six months alone, the errors in these minor household accounts accumulate over two hundred fifty rupee. If these books belong to a modest household - a knight, an esquire - this is not only significant but a potentially _devastating_ indulgence of either negligence or greed.”

Dano grumbles, shuffling pages. “I will consider this… analysis and make my decision by Lightsday. But _if_ I am persuaded to take you under my wing, the cost of a sufficiently stout desk will come out of your wages.”

Hiraeth grinds his teeth and bows, anger and shame burning in his throat. He waits until he gains the street to wrap himself in his heavy gray cloak, though it is snowing again. Better not to knock over anything else in this interview. Especially after completely ruining his prospects with the first five. 

Years of rejected solicitations, and _now_ that his father _finally_ agrees to move to the city, no one wants to do any business at all with a half-Gerudo giant. His stepmother says it is only because of the border raids - constant incursions from the honorless desert bandits have magnified the consequences of drought in the far west and south provinces. Castletown itself suffers less than most places, but everyone has friends and family elsewhere. 

Hiraeth stumbles on a patch of black ice. A few townspeople snicker at him, and moon-faced children point and shriek. Hiraeth hunches his shoulders and takes the first available turn out of the plaza. 

Within minutes, he’s lost. Again. 

Hiraeth swears, hurrying his stride as much as he dares, looking at every corner building for the street-crest, trying to remember the map. He wonders how the cartographers who surveyed the capital could be so incompetent - or if somehow the streets and alleys have moved. It seems ridiculous to him that a city of tens of thousands packed between curtain walls and castle should be built with wattle-and-daub more often than honest timber or fired brick.

“If it ever stops raining for three days together, one little kitchen fire could torch a whole quarter,” he grumbles to himself, shaking his head at another street inscription too weathered to read. “Completely irration- _oh!”_

“Oof-! _Vento e onda,”_ cries the stranger as they collide, both scrambling for balance.

Hiraeth swears, and loses his footing as he tries to pull his cloak from the other man’s grasp. His knee screams at him, and frigid water is somehow leaking into his boot. “Watch where you walk, _outlander.”_

 _“Scusa,_ I did not think - no, thinking too much, careful too little. Here, you are not hurt from my - foolish little wanderings? Yes? Here, taking my hand?” The breathless stranger braces himself on the cobbles and offers his hand as leverage.

Hiraeth glares and pulls himself to his feet on his own. He would only overbalance the man again if he were dumb enough to accept the offer. He dredges up his best Labrynnan, vaguely amused to see the man’s hazel eyes pop wide as anything when he looks up at the giant he’s stumbled into. “Keep your pity for your own follies, I have no need for-”

“Goddess bright you’re _enormous!_ This is the most amazing thing that’s happened to me all week,” says the stranger in the same tongue, tugging off his glove and offering his tawny brown hand cordially. “Name’s Julien d’Oro, I’m here with my cousin Max but he’s a bit of a heel, you won’t like him. I sure don’t. Can I buy you a drink?”

“Hn,” says Hiraeth, tugging his waistcoat straight again and hoping his shattered thoughts will reassemble themselves before next year. “You hardly look old enough to buy your own cakes.”

Julien laughs, artless and open. “Ah, no, I’m seventeen, but Hyrule has funny laws don’t they? There’s a place I found last month though, they understand civilized customs, thank the goddess. _Terrible_ wine, especially the white. Godsawful bitter. Does the job though. Come on, I’ll introduce you. Good sort, Nido, even if his ears make him look the startled goat half the time. That’s fashion for you in this country I guess - oh no!”

Hiraeth steps back as Julien reaches towards him, but he only brushes his fingertips against the ruined waistcoat and moans in in sorrow. 

“Oh. That’s nothing,” begins Hiraeth.

“No, I’m so sorry! Clumsy Jules, ruining another expensive thing. Such a beautiful floral print, and that was squid ink in my pen too. I knew I should have taken it back to the room after breakfast but I _really_ didn’t want to listen to Max going on about every little thing. He’s insufferable when he feels flattered,” says Julien with a sigh. “Come on, if you won’t have a glass of wine, give me your tailor’s direction at least, so I can make it up to you?”

Hiraeth laughs, dropping his own hand on the smaller man’s shoulder, surprised to feel whipcord muscle under his heavily embroidered salmon-pink coat. “You aren’t afraid of anything, are you?”

Julien rolls his eyes, but he smiles. “Who has _time_ to be afraid of anything in assembly season? It’s busier in this town than stormwatch two days from a narrow harbor, and I hear rumors the Hylians are twenty times more frantic than this when there’s a wedding on the horizon.”

“Probably. Most people love showing off at parties as well as they love gossip, and anyone who wants to be thought of as _somebody_ tries to fix their engagements during festival. It’s all very stupid. Hiraeth Anjotyr Vohenia. We just moved here a few months ago ourselves. Better prospects for my sisters I guess.”

“My sympathies,” says Julien, gesturing down an unmarked street. “Never mind the glass, let me buy you a bottle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> World note:
> 
> The household accounts Hiraeth audits for his interview with Vah Dano are based on my research into late western renaissance/early age of exploration economics from other* projects. I picked on hops and soap because one of the historical ledgers I was looking into seemed to prefer ordering things in what I think of as ‘regular’ numbers of units rather than regular costs. They had an arrangement with a local merchant for regular deliveries of fifty bushels of hops fifty pounds of soap every month, which amused me. 
> 
> Both hops and soap would be common, regular purchases for a moderately well-off household, but soap was _significantly_ more expensive. (Think 20 times more per weight.) Even in households/estates large enough to make much of their own soap for washing people, or even laundry, most had to purchase key ingredients.
> 
> Regular, necessary expenses were** generally the easiest target for an unscrupulous manager of accounts to begin skimming and test the attentiveness of their employer, though the crooked always grow more bold with time. 
> 
>  
> 
> * That is, Not Fanfiction
> 
> ** Don’t do this.


	13. Tension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T-4

Zelda is thirteen in the year Lady Elapidan accidentally poisons the son of the Holodrun envoy. For three weeks he lays deathly ill, unable to keep even the most innocuous food in his stomach more than an hour. The entire court is on the verge of blood feud, and the northern trade accord is withdrawn before it even reaches the Council of Peers when the Holodrun accuse the royal physician of quackery. 

The Zora delegation graciously offers their own physicians, with more than a few snide comments about the delicacy of human biology. The Holodrun accuse them of deliberately exacerbating the boy’s condition for political advantage. Her father says nothing. The Zora tear up the nascent peace treaty, and leave Castletown the next day.

Blades are drawn in the hall of judgment when it is discovered the  _ intended _ target was the heir to Ordun - a rival suitor for a profitable marriage contract with the third daughter of Earl Hebron.

The entire court wants to know why Zelda hasn’t worked a miracle yet to heal the boy. Vah Rauru testifies that her prayers for intercession  _ have _ brought a miracle, because the boy is still alive to  _ be _ sick.

Zelda cannot even flee to the garden, and nevermind her sheikah training. She must be seen at court or the royal shrines at all hours, or Holodrun will do far worse than tear up the proposed trade contract. Hyrule is already fighting two of her neighbors and herself besides.

If the Goron had sent literally  _ anyone _ less phlegmatic than Brother Budro to the summit this year, if the Labrynian ambassadors  _ weren’t _ annoyingly sanguine about everything, if the Necludan delegates wavered in their piety, if, if, if.

Zelda is alone in the temple when the shadows move. She thinks at first Impa is testing her, but she hears hobnail boots behind the altar, and Impa  _ never _ wears boots. She does not scream - whoever it is has evaded the royal guard already, and calling more will avail nothing. 

Zelda rises from her prayers, smoothing her skirts - and slipping needleblades between her fingers.

A man in a strange gray mask and a Terminan-style layered gray cloak steps down from the shadows of the altar statues, striding over the sanctified offering stone as if it has no more significance to him than common dirt. He drops to the crimson carpet in front of her with - not grace, but an easy kind of confidence - hardly even bending his knees to absorb the impact, though it’s a five foot descent.

Zelda does not give ground. “Who are you? How did you get past the guards?”

“Hn.  _ That _ was child’s play,” says the man, pulling the carved wooden mask away. Under the cloak he wears brown riding boots and Hylian breeches, but a long Terminan-style embroidered waistcoat in deepest blue and onion-gold. A wide scar stretches down the right side of his face, and he wears his golden hair in a messy, short queue that leaves his sidelocks and fringe loose.

“Who  _ are _ you? Why are you here?”

The man looks down at her in silence, his blue eyes cold and hard. “You require a miracle to restore the peace, do you not?”

Zelda frowns at him. Hyrule has not experienced true peace since before she was born, but she will not say this to a mysterious stranger.

“Hn,” says the man, and from the shadows under his cloak he draws out a milky glass bottle with silver wire securing the cork. “Do not waste this. Go directly to the bedside of the envoy’s son, and help him open it.”

Zelda hesitates. It looks like common glass, mostly, but it’s too bright for the dim temple. As if it holds light inside it. “How do I know there isn’t some poison or miasma or curse inside this bottle?” 

“You don’t,” says the man, with a sour-apple smile. He offers her the bottle.

“Were - you sent by the spirits? You seem familiar somehow, but no one at court has scars like that,” says Zelda softly, noticing now the faint shiny patches from old burns on his hands, and the thin cord of scar tissue peeking above the folds of his snowy white neckcloth.

“If it brings you comfort to believe that, by all means, believe. Time is cruel and short,” says the man. “Take this to him, before it is too late.”

Zelda accepts the bottle, though she can hear Impa scold her inside her head for trusting this stranger.

“Hn,” says the man, hiding his face under the gray mask again. 

Zelda frowns at the white bottle in her hands, and when she looks up again, he is gone. She feels like she sees the shadows moving, but she couldn’t swear to it. She tells herself he  _ must _ be good and true, to come and go so easily on sanctified ground. No evil magic could ever persist in this place. The priests all say so, and the sacred texts, and even Impa says that Darkness always gives way to Light in the end.

Zelda hides the bottle in her skirt pocket, and returns to the castle. No one dares oppose her wish to visit the Holodrun state rooms, but Impa does try to persuade her out of entering the sick room. No one has anything to say after she reminds them that the Sacred Maiden is protected by the power of the golden goddesses.

Zelda prays at the boy’s side until everyone is too bored to watch her. She tucks the glass bottle under his hand and twists the silver wire open. Nothing happens. 

Zelda lays his other hand on the cork, gently prying the bottle open around his clammy fingers. 

The world explodes in a burst of pink light. Zelda imagines she hears tiny bells and distant laughter, and wonders what will happen to Hyrule if she is dead.

The light fades, and everyone is talking at once. Including the Holodrun boy, who is scrambling from his sickbed wearing nothing but a nightshirt and raving about nymphs and spirits.

Zelda has performed another miracle.

Still dazzled from the light, she manages to stuff the empty bottle in her skirt pocket, and pretends to faint. She is grateful that Impa is strong enough to carry her back to her tower, because she is more dizzy and tired than she’s ever been. She doesn’t even mind the awful green potion to soothe her headache.

Zelda does try to sleep, and she is glad of the solitude. But she is restless and worried, and it has been nearly a month since she’s seen anything but her rooms and the temple and the Holodrun suite.

At twilight, Sheik climbs out of the Princess’ bedroom window.

The spring evening is calm and the wind is refreshingly brisk. It feels good to be out of court dress, to be climbing and running again. To be free of the close confines of the castle, the rigidly formal gardens, the stifling manners and smothering politics.

Sheik crouches in the shadows of a chimney in the artisan’s quarter of Castletown. The nice side. Where luthiers and jewelers and fine woodworkers and sculptors of marble live. He likes this neighborhood - it always smells of incense and flowers and clean wood.

The smoke from this house has a strange edge to it, like there are hot spices in the fire. Sheik cannot decide if he likes it or not, but it fills him with warmth to linger near it, even though it makes his nose itch. 

A dark voice rises with the woodsmoke, and a faint lilt of girlish teasing.

Sheik feels a hint of the dizziness return, and a tightness in his chest. He decides to rest a little longer than he meant to, and see if it passes. If it doesn’t, he will have to return to the castle far sooner than he wants - and likely on foot.

He listens to the faint voices, and wonders why an artisan’s family is awake so late. He creeps to the edge of the roof, surprised to see several of the windows alight. He climbs down an iron drainpipe, drawn by those voices. 

Mostly the dark one. 

Sheik has never heard a voice like that before, deep and warm and dark and rumbling like distant thunder. He feels a strange heaviness, listening to it, but somehow he yearns to hear more.

“And so the three kings came to the castle of Begran, and there feasted and made merry with the treasures they took from the six kings of Serlion,” says the dark voice behind the half-open window and the orange-and-gold homespun curtains.

“Ugh, that’s a boring one. It’s all politics and names and how many horses everyone has,” whines a girlish voice.

“Yeah, skip to the part where they lay siege to Zelda’s castle,” says another.

“It will be important for later stories to remember which lords rebelled after the Champion went abroad,” says the man with the dark voice.

“Why do  _ we _ have to remember? It’s all in the book either way,” says a third girlish voice. “Anyways the Vision of the Hundred Knights is  _ boring. _ Skip to the feats of Ban and Bor and Camben and Clarian and the ten thousand ghosts.”

“I am  _ not _ reading you five chapters of battle tonight Ishi. You will fall asleep in the middle and be cross all day at school tomorrow,” says the man.

“Yeah, battle is  _ boring. _ And long. Read us the one about the damsel instead,” says a younger girl.

“There are many damsels,” rumbles the man in a tone of long-suffering.

“The one with the sword,” says Ishi.

“Which  _ one _ though,” muses one of the older girls. “Most of the sword-damsels are sad stories with stupid knights and stupider princesses.”

“Stupider isn’t a real word,” says the other older girl. “Read a romantic one. Like the one with the sword of virtue on her belt.”

“That is not a romantic story at all,” says the man. “You are confusing it with the story of Lady Eleanor.”

“Am not! She was kind to the poor knight from the north, and saw his good heart even though he was hideous,” says the other girl.

“That isn’t how the story-” begins the man.

“And tell us again how she warned him about the wicked curse and tried ever so hard to save him,” swoons the other.

“Oh oh! Issit the one with the brother losing his head? That one’s  _ exciting," _ cries an even younger voice.

The man sighs, turning pages. “You are all of you forgetting the  _ actual _ curse of Balin, who did  _ not _ draw the sword by might  _ or _ by virtue, but witchcraft. And not only did it cause his death, but led him first to slay the Lady of the Fens, his brother, his best friend, and the Knight of the East Isles among others.”

“And then the lady came on the horse and saw her dear knight laying dead as a doormouse-” says Ishi.

“Doornail,” corrects one of the older girls. “She leapt from her horse without the slightest fear of Balin, and cried-”

“ _ Two bodies thou hast slain, and one heart, _ ” recite four girlish voices.

The man sighs harder.

“ _ And two hearts in one body, _ ” continue the girls. “ _ And two souls thou hast lost! _ ”   


“And then she took his sword and fell on it,” cries the young one. “But how  _ did _ she fall on his sword? I mean if she tripped, her toe would be bloody, but how could she fall on the pointy bit?”

“Ooh! Maybe it was sticking out of his back and she fell on it when she flung herself on his body in grief unending,” swoons another girl.

“I should like to know how you expect me to read you any story at all in these conditions,” rumbles the man.

“Oh don’t be fussy. You read the  _ best _ stories,” says one of the older girls.

“Given that apparently none of you have paid attention to the actual stories I actually read, that point is very much in doubt,” says the man.

“Pfft. We always  _ listen, _ it’s just sometimes the stories in the books are stupid, and need fixing.  _ You _ taught us that,” says the other older girl.


	14. Assignment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T-3

Hiraeth is nearly seventeen when Vah Dano takes him aside at midday, quietly asking him to stay an hour late that night  _ without _ sending word home first. He knows his mother will be angry if he is late for dinner, but his curiosity gets the better of him, and he agrees.

Which is also a substantial part of why he agrees to analyze a new account in strict secrecy. He can see at once something about these ledgers is different than the normal work, and he asks if he should take them home to study in secret. 

“That is one thing you must  _ not _ do,” says Dano. “Nor can I allow you to work late or early, lest there be rumors.”

“Ah,” says Hiraeth, seeing already that he will need to lie well to keep his sisters from speculating about his tardiness. “I will lock them in my desk and wrap them in empty folios for tomorrow. What am I looking for? Clipping? Fraudulent expenses? Merchants with connections to the steward?”

“I don’t know. A clerk from Councilor Batoh’s offices brought these to us in strict confidence. They want an analysis of the  _ probability _ of shady dealing by Woolsday next, but they’ve had the damn things censored,” says Dano. “They wouldn’t spend the money on that much shadow magic unless they had reason to believe more evidence will be destroyed if it’s known they have this much. If  _ anyone _ can find a thief in a week from six sanitized account books that aren’t even sequential, it’s you.”

Hiraeth bows. “Then I must begin at once. I will create a new cipher tonight for my notes, after I have some idea of what we’re working with.”

Dano snorts. “You and your damn puzzles. Go then, and before you leave we’ll rekey your desk.”

Hiraeth bows, and says nothing. He is certain if he opens his mouth he will disgrace himself with excitement. Apprentices simply do not work important accounts, or clients with over two million rupee a year.

Dano trusts him. 

Under his gruff, suspicious, and generally humorless manner, Dano evidently holds immense faith in his analysis and skill - and discretion. He hasn’t even finished working off the expense of his desk, and Dano trusts him when almost no one else in Castletown does.

Hiraeth skims through the ledgers, distracted by the temptation to see if Julien is free to celebrate at Nido’s tonight. Not that he can explain his reasons at all, but Julien almost never turns down an excuse to evade his insufferable cousin. If his sisters notice any difference in his manner, he will never hear the end of it - but despite his open manners, Julien is remarkably discreet. 

Hiraeth feels a vague sense of pattern developing in the numbers, in the slant of the handwriting, in the spaces that say nothing. He scribbles a few ambiguous notes to himself in his oldest cipher, and tries to put it all from his mind as he walks home in the brisk spring twilight. 

Julien and Max are not back from court.

Hiraeth weaves a perfect excuse he never uses, because no one is home when he arrives except his father, who is passed out drunk under the apple tree in the tiny back garden of their townhouse. 

Almost every house on this street has apple and dogwood trees along the back fence, and on the other side of the alley it’s all cherries and almonds. Much of Castletown has to make do with tiny shared plots crammed inside a block of timber or wattle houses, but in this neighborhood everyone not only has a little private garden, but a tiny strip of terraced plantings facing the street as well. A few years ago, Hiraeth would never have believed so little would seem a luxury.

He looks for a note from his mother or any of his sisters, but finds none. Nor is any dinner bubbling in the kitchen hearth. He checks the bedrooms to see if they have packed for home, but everything is as it should be. He decides to wake his father after all, brewing strong black tea and carrying the whole iron pot outside with the empty cups in his pockets so maybe he won’t drop them.

The scent of the tea isn’t enough to wake him, but he rouses when Hiraeth takes the golden glass bottle from the crook of his arm. His unfocused blue eyes are bloodshot and puffy, and he slurs a blasphemous curse as he rights himself on the bench.

Hiraeth offers a clean handkerchief, a little surprised when Link wipes at his eyes first. There can be no doubt he is hurting, but he doesn’t offer an explanation for his quiet tears, and Hiraeth doesn’t ask. He sits beside his father on the stone bench, watching the last rays of sunlight soften the crooked labyrinth of budding apple branches. Link pours tea for both of them, as both cups miraculously survived the journey to the bottom of the garden. He leaves room in his own cup and gestures for Hiraeth to hand him the bottle again.

Hiraeth isn’t sorry when he  _ accidentally _ knocks it over to spill harmlessly among the nasturtium.

“Din’s fire Jojo, you could just say no,” sighs Link, lifting the steaming tea to his pale lips.

“Theoretically,” concedes Hiraeth. “Where’s mom?”

Link snorts. “The girls have gone to dancing lessons.”

“Even Leela?” Hiraeth cradles his tea in his hands, completely uninterested in drinking it. But the heat feels nice.

“Apparently it is fashionable among the wealthy to train girlish skills from infancy,” says Link with a bitter twist to his lips. “I wanted - a good life for you. All of you. But I wasn’t raised with all these - trappings.  _ Manners _ and  _ art _ and  _ fashion _ . Everywhere we turn in this godsforgotten city, another ridiculous  _ rule _ .”

“Hn,” says Hiraeth, wondering for the millionth time what his father’s home village was like, and  _ why _ he turned his back on everything seventeen years ago. “When you don’t have to spend your whole day scratching a living from the cold earth, you have to fill the emptiness up with something. Might as well be color and music and poetry and dancing. Things that make life worth living.”

Link stares at his empty teacup, a stray tear tumbling down his cheek.

“When’s the last time you ate?”

Link shrugs, sniffing in the way men do when they’re pretending they aren’t crying. “Whatever the girls packed me for lunch. I wasn’t paying attention.”

Which usually means he didn’t actually eat it, but gave it away to the craftspeople who work for him. “Julien showed me a place by the river gate that sells the  _ best _ roast pumpkin soup, and fried sausages with cheese inside. Mom would hate it.”

“Decent beer?”

“Better. Dry cider and dark stout,” says Hiraeth, handing his father his own untouched cup of tea.

Link snorts in bitter amusement, and drains the cup. “You’re too young to be any judge. Nothing for it but to see for myself.”

Hiraeth tries not to gloat over the success of his ploy. He persuades Link into a cloak before they set out, mostly by way of standing in front of the door with it until he gives up.

Dinner is greasy and savory and the common room is loud. Link eats more heartily after a second stout, and Hiraeth takes care of the bill after the fourth in hopes of preventing him from ordering more. Hiraeth does not like the sour smell of the stout, and even less does he like the way his father is filling the silence with the kind of small talk he  _ never _ indulges, and trailing off mid sentence and staring at him like he thinks the rest of what he’s trying to say is written on his son’s chest.

Unfortunately, one of the serving boys has recognized Master Vohenia, architect of the Great Bridge and the Royal Causeway and the Glass Garden and the Royal Opera. Word spreads quickly, toasts are raised. The owner brings a bottle of strong amber spirits to the table and refuses to hear Hiraeth’s objections.

“Everyone  _ loves _ a hero at arm’s length,” says Link with a wry twist of his lips after they are more-or-less alone again, pouring himself a generous glass of the new poison. “They think what I do and have done is amazing only because  _ they _ haven’t done it.”

“That  _ is _ generally how it works,” begins Hiraeth, wondering if he has enough rupee with him to hire a cart if Link passes out again. 

“They’re wrong,” cuts in Link, thumping the bottle down. “Being a hero isn’t about bold actions any more than being a great builder is about having a wild imagination. It’s solid reason and unwavering integrity and taking the  _ right _ risks for the good of others. I am neither.”

“Baba, what you are is drunk.” 

Link laughs bitterly, raising his glass in a toast to the room. “Not drunk enough. Should have listened to him when we were young, but I didn’t, so here we are. I could drink any man here under the table and still walk a straight line after. I’m not proud of that.”

Hiraeth sighs. “Nonetheless, you  _ should _ be proud of your work. You’ve made life better for people all over Hyrule with what you do. So what if it’s not the kind of thing people write poetry about.”

“ _ Poetry _ .” Link makes a rude noise. “The deeds people write paeans about  _ aren’t _ a source of happiness to anyone, and the kind of fleeting satisfaction that flows from piling rocks one atop the other is nothing. Don’t be like me, Jojo. Don’t  _ ever _ try to be like me.”

Hiraeth watches his father drink the bitter spirits as casually as other people drink tea, distracted from his own little victory by the cipher in front of him. “Did something happen today?”

Link shakes his head. “Every season, every  _ day _ has some tragedy under the blossoms and the sunshine. People will say ‘oh, it is worth it to do this or that bad thing because of this good thing that will come about after it’ or they will say ‘this sacrifice is a good one, because things would have been even worse without’ but if you never learn anything else from me, at least learn  _ this _ . They’re wrong. They’re all wrong.”

“Baba, you are being too strict with people,” sighs Hiraeth. He decides his father must be exceptionally drunk to talk this much. “Even you say these same things, that the world is a hard place, and we all have to do things that are ugly and unfair and hard sometimes. It is good to make others happy, even when it’s not always easy to do it. That hard things are necessary for the good of others. That doing good is worth even more when it’s the hardest choice.”

“Hn,” said Link, draining the rest of his glass. “The idea - the seductive promise - that the end justifies any means of obtaining it is a beautiful lie. But it is still a  _ lie _ . Never let yourself forget that.”

Hiraeth frowns as his father pours his glass full again. “By what law do we measure the acceptable means? What map illuminates this narrow path you propose? How are we to make the whole world follow it? If  _ one _ person is willing to do something unthinkable to achieve their goal, how could anyone stop them without  _ also _ leaving this path?”

“First, don’t assume stopping them is a good and correct end,” says Link with a bitter quirk to his lips.

Hiraeth frowns. “You just  _ said _ they did something unthinkable.”

“Did you ask why?” Link pours more poison down his throat, licking his lips of the burn. 

“You just  _ said _ they did the unthinkable to achieve their goal and that we should  _ always _ regard this as evil,” splutters Hiraeth.

“Evil calls to evil,” says Link, nodding, toying with his glass, his cold blue eyes suddenly as deep and terrible as forever. “Answer an evil done for  _ any _ end with an evil in the name of Light, and you will bring forth only more darkness and chaos and blood and suffering. The two greatest evils in this world stem from this one lie: from those who act on it, and from those who look on that action and do nothing.”

“Baba,” says Hiraeth softly when the glass is empty again. “We should go home.”

To his surprise, Link agrees. He replaces the cork in the bottle, and tries to return what’s left to the owner, who refuses until Hiraeth points out that it will only be wasted if either of them attempt to carry it. Unfortunately, Link’s cooperative mood ends at the street. He turns the wrong way at every possibility and refuses to be persuaded to change his course. He leads them into the slums and out the other side to a working class neighborhood that’s still trying to appear respectable even as the landlords allow the buildings to sag and crumble about the edges, slumping inevitably towards ruin.

“Baba, it’s getting late to be walking this close to the outer walls. We should go home. Before mom worries.”

Link ignores him, weaving across a cramped and uneven plaza towards a half-bricked timber house at the corner where the street jogs. Warm lamplight fills the mullion windows and softens the cracked upper-storey stucco and peeling blue paint on the shutters. An orange cat on the stone-capped porch wall yawns at them.

Hiraeth catches his shoulder and pulls him back before he can stumble up the steps. “We shouldn’t bother strangers at this hour. Or any hour.”

Link grunts at him, fumbling through his pockets. “I seem to - have left my key. Where is my key? You have it Jojo?”

“I have my keys. It’s fine. Let’s go - _not_ that way.  _ Home _ , baba.”

Link frowns up at him, then at the cramped little house. The orange cat chirps at them, its tail dancing merrily.

“Home,” rumbles Hiraeth, stern as he can manage. He tries and fails to make his father turn away.

“Do you ever think about it? How life would be, if things were different? If you’d made a different choice? If you’d just - said something? Anything? Acted sooner? Waited even  _ one more hour _ ?” Link stares at the little house as he speaks, a strange wobble in his words.

Hiraeth frowns, wondering if his father even knows where he is. “Daydreaming about what might have been serves no purpose. All that matters is forward.”

Link chokes on a sob and pulls away. He loses his balance and collapses onto the cobbles, weeping openly. 

Hiraeth swears, scanning the windows facing the tiny plaza to see if anyone is awake. To his dismay, shadows in several windows suggest they’ve had an audience for some time. He hopes no one has summoned the town guard. The gut-churning impact of watching his father shatter is bad enough. “I know you’re tired. It’s late. You’ve had a  _ lot _ to drink. Take my hand - let’s get you home.”

Link ignores him, curling in on his misery there on the cold stone.

“You’ll feel better when you’ve rested,” says Hiraeth, taking a knee at his side and trying to urge him upright. He wonders if he could lift his father if he dared to try. He wishes he wasn’t so clumsy.

“You folks need some help?”

“No,” says Hiraeth to the shadows, squinting to find the source of the voice.

Link ignores them both, weeping and babbling nonsense to himself in the language of the desert bandits.

A youth in workman’s clothing and a man in rough, stained clothes emerge from a side street, moving directly toward them. 

“Oh man, he doesn’t look so good,” says the younger one.

“Yeah,” agrees the man. “You need some water for him? Need us to send for the apothecary? The doctor?”

“No. We’re  _ fine _ ,” growls Hiraeth, pushing to his feet and trying to look dangerous. It doesn’t work.

“ _ You _ might be.  _ He _ doesn’t look fine at all,” says the man with a shake of his head, closing the distance to crouch beside Link. He peers at him, worrying at his own moustache, but doesn’t try to touch Link. “He needs water and a warm fire. Let’s bring him into the house.”

“That isn’t necessary,” begins Hiraeth, as the man gestures for the youth to join him.

“Tala-! Put the kettle on,” shouts the man. “And get the door open for us Ben. There’s a good lad - here, take my hand mister. Good, you get his other. On three.”

Against his better judgment, Hiraeth helps the stranger lift Link to his feet and guide him into the little house on the corner. The orange cat jumps down from the porch to try and tangle them up, but somehow they manage. A rose-cheeked woman and a child about Saso’s height meet them at the door, and the woman fusses and hovers until Hiraeth surrenders his father to her.

Link is still weeping and talking nonsense to himself, as if he’s not aware he’s being dragged through a stranger’s house.

The child tugs at his cloak. “Is he sick mister? Did he fall? Is he your friend? What happened to his face?” 

Hiraeth looks down at the tiny Hylian, baffled by their bold manner. “My father drank a little too much, that’s all. There’s really no need-”

“Father? But you’re so  _ tall _ ! Wow! Did you get tall by eating carrots? Is that why your hair is orange? Or mighty carp? Please don’t say carp, I hate fish,” says the child.

“Mika, you’re being rude. Here, you take care of getting Ginger some dinner so she doesn’t bother our guests,” says Ben, handing the orange cat to his sib.

“Ohhh- _ kay _ ,” groans Mika, hefting the orange cat on their shoulder and stomping upstairs. Much as Saso might.

“Sorry about that. She’s excitable. Sorry we meet in this way, but always a pleasure to make new friends. I’m Ben Fuller, and my folks are Alex and Tala. My little brother Ferret is probably in bed already.”

“Hiraeth Vohenia. Clerk’s apprentice,” says Hiraeth after a moment, tugging off his gloves to offer his hand.

Ben smiles. “Good work is it, clerking? Weaver’s apprentice myself, in the Royal Woolworks. Still on two heddles, but they might move me to four next year if I get all the samples knocked out by solstice. Da’s a master dyer, if you couldn’t tell.”

“Good enough - we appreciate your hospitality Fuller, but we don’t wish to impose. As soon as he’s calmed a little, we-” begins Hiraeth.

“Young man - what’s his name? He’s not responding to us,” interrupts Tala. “Does he speak Hylian?”

“Of course he does. He just rambles when he’s in his cups,” sighs Hiraeth, stuffing his gloves in his pocket. “I need to get him home. I think he must have heard from someone in his old unit is all. It happens. Stirs things up. It’s fine.”

“Ah, thought so. Into the kitchen with you mister,” says Alex, helping his wife drag Link through the spring-hinged louvred doors. “My older brother was the same way after a decade on the western border, Light rest him. Make yourself comfortable, we’ve got him from here.”

Hiraeth gestures helplessly, completely at a loss with these aggressively warm strangers and their tiny house with its tiny furniture and impossibly tiny staircase. A braided rag rug fills the front half of the room, cluttered with shabby padded chairs and garish blankets, tapestry pillows and stuffed animals, painted blocks and wheeled wooden toys.

“Hey, it’s alright. Da’s got this,” says Ben, gentle and smiling.

Worrisome noises float in from the kitchen. “He usually has an iron stomach - famous for it back home. There must have been something noxious in the food. I should have known better than to take him there. I need to-”

“No, you don’t,” interrupts Ben, stepping between Hiraeth and the kitchen door. “I’ve seen more than a few schoolmates just about wreck themselves on drink. I was lucky - my folks made sure I know the signs. He was a few breaths from serious trouble, and needs to get the poison out of his stomach without feeling shamed in front of his son.”

Hiraeth feels the heat rise in his face, and has to force himself to hold the dark-haired youth’s fearless gaze. “Again, I - thank you for your hospitality. I mean no offense. It is - unusual to find such kindness in this city.  _ Especially _ from people who lost family to - raiders.”

“When we all share what we have and know, we all have more. Besides, it’s the right thing to do.” Ben smiles, gesturing to the little settles around the cheery, precarious little iron stove. “Please, have a seat Mister Vohenia. They’ll be just a bit.”

“Not unless you have a great desire to replace your chairs,” says Hiraeth, shaking his head with a wry grin. It is strange standing in a home so small. His whole life he’s been accustomed to heavy furniture and deep stairs, tables made for Hylians to stand at or perch beside on high stools, and benches for himself and his sisters. He wonders for the first time how many of the public buildings in the village his father worked on.

Ben laughs, looking a bit mollified. “Fair - you are  _ amazingly _ tall, sir. Can I get you some tea?”

“Thank you,” says Hiraeth, though he is embarrassed to accept further generosity from people who cannot possibly earn even a quarter of his father’s income all together. It would be rude to refuse - so while Ben putters about, Hirath digs through his wallet for red rupees.

Ben snorts and refuses to accept it, waving him off with an admonishment to pay it forward someday when  _ he _ sees a stranger in trouble. Mika returns from appeasing the orange cat, full of more questions. She and Ben valiantly keep him distracted from the wretched sound of his father being sick. They ask about himself, his work, his sisters, plying him with more tea until he is certain he will burst. 

At last, Tala comes in from the kitchen to say Link is stable, but it will be a few hours before all danger is past. She invites him to stay the night as well, opening a cupboard under the stair to prove there’s blankets aplenty. 

Hiraeth laughs because he cannot imagine what to say. Especially when Ben offers to cross town with a message so the family won’t worry. 

Tala refuses his money also, even though he waited for Ben to leave the room first for paper and pen. “You don’t owe us a thing, young man. We would do the same for anyone. If you  _ must _ balance it in your own ledger, promise you’ll bring a little light of your own into the world hereafter, and I shall be well satisfied. Do you like cake? There is only a little wedge left, and I should like to wash the plate.”

Hiraeth bows, and wonders if he is dreaming. “It is even more pleasurable to be of service when cake is involved.”


	15. Clairvoyance

Summer in the royal gardens is a glorious, vivid season, fragrant at all hours. Morning blossoms and moon blossoms riot everywhere, and the formal hedges are always thick and glossy, filled back in with dense new growth after the spring pruning. 

Zelda loves the gardens. She feels closer to her mother’s spirit there than anywhere else. The late Queen was in many ways the despair of the royal gardeners and the keepers of the royal wardrobe, for she loved to have her hands in the rich earth. Roses thrived under her touch - and everything else, too. She could coax along the most tender, exotic plants in her gardens. The King had given her exclusive use of whole hillsides between the castle and the Council buildings as a wedding gift, so she could cultivate wildflowers and lush tallgrasses too.

Zelda misses that part of her father, especially in these quiet hours when everyone else is busy with their duties or properly asleep. People like to say his softness perished with his wife, and who could blame him growing hard in his grief? Especially so soon after losing his parents to Gerudo raiders?

She was extremely small when her grandparents’ manor burned, so she can’t say she ever grieved for them. But she remembers her father weeping when the messenger came, on his knees in grief before the whole court. She remembers how his beard tickled her nose when he clutched her tight, as if the distant fires might steal her too. She remembers how her mother took his crown off and kissed his forehead as she so often did in private.

She can’t remember when that stopped, what happened between her grandparents’ funeral and her mother’s that divided her parents. She was small. And she liked having her mother’s undivided attention. Or rather - only needing to share her with the gardens. 

Zelda turns another circuit through the rose garden, trying to love the moonlight on white blossoms the way her mother did. She tries to love the fragrance of jasmine and moonflower in the alcoves. She tries to be serene and kind and soft as a sacred maiden should be. 

But she is dreaming of storms again, and her mother isn’t there to help her understand what they mean or what to do about them. 

The dreams are never quite the same, but they are always different from the other visions the gods send her. In all the other visions, she sees specific people - if not their faces, their heraldry or something unique in their appearance. In her other visions, she sees specific places, even if she’s never been there. When she describes the places to the high priests, they take long notes and they send royal limners and cartographers to find it. 

Even the horrible visions of battlefields, she sees the bright banners and standards, garrisons and bridges and clear profiles of the mountains on the horizon. Sometimes these come to her in time to warn the Lord Marshal, sometimes they come to her only a day or two before a bloody messenger reaches the castle. 

No one asks why she didn’t warn the generals about those disasters. But she can see in their eyes the questions they dare not voice. She is afraid of what everyone will say about her, will  _ think _ of her when the storm does come. She is afraid of how many people will die if she can’t solve the goddesses’ riddle. 

But how can she explain a dream of glowing yellow eyes in a wall of darkness?

How can she explain a vision of the earth rent open under spears of lightning?

How can she ask Vah Rauru to send priests and painters to the west to find a place where the wind is black, and the earth changes shape under her feet?

“It is late,” says Impa from the shadows.

“I am aware,” Zelda grumbles at her because she is ashamed that she startled.

“You are to attend the war council in the morning,” says Impa.

“Why bother? I’ve already heard the report about the loss of Avosgart and Duzhar and Yarat. The Baron of Karakut will ask for more soldiers, Father will refuse, everyone will argue for three hours, and nothing else will get done until well after lunch.”

“The council and peerage are less likely to egregiously misbehave in the presence of their maiden princess,” points out Impa.

Zelda makes a rude noise. Anyone awake at this hour to overhear her deserves to be shocked. “Even if I could persuade Father to send a detachment to Vosterkun, there isn’t actually one to send. After harvest, if we strip the men from every farm in north Hyrule we  _ could _ reinforce the mountain garrisons over the winter. But we’d have to feed them on biscuit and gruel to afford it, and oh by the way, if you could please bring your hayfork and threshing knife when you report, because we can only give you one pike. That will go over well.”

Impa snorts in disdain. “Militia forces are suitable to deter cattle thieves and petty footpads. Sometimes. Maybe. If they’re more terrified of their sergeant than ghosts. Sending farmers to reinforce the Gerudo border is a death sentence. Of which, the Minister of Justice is going to be attending council tomorrow.”

“Ew,” says Zelda. She would remove the man to the farthest and most contested border post at once if she had the power. Everything about him makes her skin crawl, and she hates that her father is seriously considering his proposals for ‘reforming’ the prisons and putting criminals on the battlefield. 

“The crown  _ must _ consider other means of raising funds to stabilize Hyrule. There aren’t enough small rupee left in the treasury to support another  _ month _ \- let alone a year - with all her knights on active circuit and tens of thousands of pikemen holding down border garrisons. You must make them understand a wagon of gold and silver rupee is as much use to a field marshal as a wagon full of rocks,” says Impa, falling into step behind her. “On the other hand, to a company of professional soldiers-”

“We will not set wolves on our own people. It is an offense to the gods,” snaps Zelda. “Anyways we’d only end up in  _ another _ war to make them go away.”

Impa sighs. “No foreign bank is going to extend more credit to a country that can’t transport the collateral safely.”

“Well I’m  _ still _ not going to agree to  _ any _ marriage contract, I don’t care if the boys are filthy rich. Gross,” says Zelda, pulling her shawl tighter.

“That is the council’s idea only because they do not know there is another way,” says Impa quietly.

Zelda sighs, and folds herself gracefully onto one of the marble benches. Everything a princess does must be graceful, even in private hours, lest she forget herself in a moment of crisis. “I  _ barely _ persuaded the Zora out of formally declaring war. They’re  _ certainly _ not giving me their greatest treasure now. And no one has been able to even  _ find _ the deep forest shrine in generations.”

Impa lays a gentle hand on her shoulder. 

Zelda rubs at her temple and stares at the serene roses. “Maybe I can take some jewelry to - the artisans’ district - or one of the city banks?”

“Headache, dearest?”

“Only a little,” says Zelda, refusing to meet her eye.

A few minutes pass, and Impa sits beside her. “You had the dream again.”

Zelda nods. “This time, there was rain in the darkness, and the lightning made the shape of a sword.”

“Hm,” says Impa, reclaiming her hand.

“What does it mean? Why does the Blessed Light send me riddles when I most need guidance?”

“Did you see the eyes?”

“Not in the same dream.”

Impa grunts. “Perhaps the gods are preparing a great warrior to become your champion, to lead Hyrule through the darkness into a new golden age.”

“How will I know?”

“Pray,” suggests Impa with a shrug. “When the time is right, you’ll know. But at  _ this _ time, you should be in bed. Come - you have a long day of listening to old men argue tomorrow.”


	16. Trial

The best thing about equinox in Castletown is the beginning of the harvest markets. Unfortunately, this is  _ also _ the first day of the Lower Court hearings for the fall season. For which the matter of East Precinct Council versus Sir Arhin Kateos is third on the docket.

Hiraeth has to make do with enjoying the treasures his sisters find. 

For six weeks. 

The hearings drone on and on, presenting papers, waiting for the judge to read them, his lips moving and his finger tracing each line. Then the opposition presents  _ their _ papers, and everyone has to wait. Again. 

Hiraeth is not sure why Vah Dano thinks he needs to attend this nonsense.  _ Kateos _ doesn’t seem to think  _ he _ needs to, and he’s the one being brought to account for swindling the Marquis of Natte.

There is nothing for him to do but sit on a bench that is too short, shuffle papers for Councilor Batoh, and desperately endeavor not to lose his patience. Especially since the whole thing is an absolute farce from beginning to end. 

There is far more to the crate of crooked ledgers than years of lucrative padding and clipping. The numbers are too specific. The multiples too regular. The most questionable entries buried in a morass of holiday expenses in exactly six equal pieces every time.

But Hiraeth can’t prove it. 

Vah Dano believes him, and Batoh goes so far as to agree the patterns are suspicious. But the Council won’t risk throwing themselves after the larger, as-yet-only-probable crime when they’re stone-certain the evidence they  _ have _ will get them a swift conviction of embezzlement.

Hirath bites his tongue to keep from swearing when after an hour and a half of actual proceedings for the day, the judge grants the defense request for yet  _ another _ stay, pushing the hearing into its seventh week. He stuffs his papers back in their proper folios, fussing over the order of the pages to give everyone else time to leave. He hates having to push through crowds.

When he cannot invent any further excuse to linger, he shoulders his heavy satchel and turns - barely catching himself from tripping over his own feet when he finds Julien leaning against the baluster rail behind him, blocking the aisle.

“Haven’t you even one smile for an old friend?” 

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Hiraeth grumbles at him, wondering why the Labrynian ambassador brought his entourage to the capital two months ahead of the winter peace summit.

“I’m a ship’s navigator in a landlocked country. Of course not,” answers Julien with a winning smile. “News of the tension with Holodrum and the Zora has our regent in an absolute frenzy of intrigues, and the crown prince is - well. He’s sent us with  _ another _ portrait for your Princess. This one’s an equestrian and - oh I wish you could see it. Even you would be diverted! Also Max heard rumor that dozens of your wealthy young ladies are entering the social circuit during your harvest festival this year instead of waiting for the winter summit, and you know how he is about dancing.”

Hiraeth snorts. “You mean he wants to try and kiss them all  _ before _ they get engaged to other people this year.”

“Probably,” concedes Julien, moving out of his way and tugging his rose brocade waistcoat straight. “Join me for a glass at Nido’s place?”

“I can’t,” says Hiraeth, nodding to the town guard flanking the massive black walnut doors. One of them curls his lip in disgust, the other ignores him. It’s better than outright aggression, but not by much. “My sisters are bringing lunch up to me when the court was  _ supposed _ to recess two hours from now. And before you ask, tomorrow I’ll have to catch up on the accounts I didn’t get to in the mornings before court this week.”

“So let’s make a picnic of today,” says Julien, holding the door for him. “I’ve missed your sisters. The twins are a delight and I am absolutely  _ dying _ to know if Ishi is tall as I am yet.”

“You can only abuse that word applying it to Myra and Kyra because  _ you _ are not obliged to live with them,” grumbles Hiraeth, striking down the hall that leads towards the public gardens between the Castletown civic administration buildings. Sitting in the sunlight does sound nice, except for the headache that’s trying to set its teeth in him. He can’t walk home for a remedy and back in time, and the odds the girls will take the same path he’d choose are slim to none. 

Julien laughs at him. “I’m sure you were just as rambunctious and imprudent at fourteen as they are.  _ I _ think it’s charming. But you are not even laughing a little bit? Wind and Wave, what happened to you this summer that steals the sunlight from your eyes my friend?”

“Nothing  _ happened _ . I’m just  _ annoyed _ . Six months wasted on this case already, and if they don’t get a conviction by Saint’s Day it’ll be suspended until spring,” growls Hiraeth, holding the garden door for Julien, ignoring the suspicious glares from passing clerks and barristers and guardsmen. “The Lower Courts only meet from Kindling to Lastleaf because nothing they handle could  _ possibly _ be important enough to spoil the winter social season for the highborn.”

“So it’s  _ not _ just a bit of tax evasion and skimming they want your testimony on,” says Julien, stuffing his hands in his pockets, completely indifferent to how it disrupts the lines of his sea-green wool dress coat. 

“Yes and no,” grumps Hiraeth, scanning the gardens from the top of the marble stair. Mostly empty, at this hour. “There’s a bit of false meadow between the reflecting pool and the arbor. The weather’s been dry enough we don’t  _ have _ to find a bench.”

“ _ You _ might not, wearing all that brown and gray drab.  _ I’d _ rather not have Anna paying more attention to grass stains on my pants than my  _ brilliant _ conversation,” says Julien with a laugh. He talks of this and of other inconsequential matters as they cross the gardens. Fashion. The roads. The post-house gossip. The broken carriage wheel in the foothills and the extortionate tolls through Zoraland. Demanding opinions on presents for Anna.

“Can you not  _ breathe _ but you have something to say about  _ everything _ ?” Hiraeth teases, when he is almost certain they are out of earshot of anyone.

“All the better to balance you, my friend. Though I’ll have to work doubly hard at it this season if your dour mood this morning is any sign.”

Hiraeth snorts, gesturing to a drystone wall below the arbor path. “Depends on if Vah Batoh can secure any more records we can prove Kateos touched. Or if I can manage to write an analysis that  _ proves _ the payees and goods in even a quarter of the crooked entries are a cipher.”

“Dano and Batoh need talked around?”

“Oh,  _ they _ know I’m right. Proving it is the thing. You can  _ know _ all manner of things, but without proof? Might as well be a fairy tale,” says Hiraeth, dropping his satchel next to Julien.

“What sorts of civil trials  _ would _ extend into the winter season? Theoretically?”

Hiraeth paces, hands folded behind his back.

“I don’t mean Kateos. I’m just curious about Hylian law,” says Julien with a disingenuous grin. “Always been too busy with that very social season you hate to notice what might be going on in the halls of judgement of a winter morning.”

Hiraeth gestures in frustration. “Aside of getting caught looting the royal treasuries, counterfeiting on a massive scale, conspiracy against the crown, or outright treason?  _ Maybe _ if I could pin him down as one cog in a conspiracy of fraud  _ if _ it significantly impacts tax revenue.”

“What about profiteering?” Julien tips his head in thought, meeting his eye when Hiraeth stops pacing. “Would be a damn good reason to use cipher in your ledgers, though if even  _ you _ can’t crack it, maybe no one knows it is one, even Kateos. Especially if he  _ is _ carrying on in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps like the gossip says, the start of the racket could go back centuries. Could be just one more part of How We Do Business and no one even thinks about it.”

“Except for one godforsaken halfblood clerk’s apprentice who stares at numbers until he imagines patterns where none exist,” growls Hiraeth. He drops onto the grass and stretches out in the sunlight, watching the thin clouds.

Julien brings the satchel over and sits next to him, laying a hand on his shoulder. “If I know anything about you at all, it’s that nothing about you is ever going to be satisfied being  _ half _ anything, even if you have to change the laws of nature to do it. Don’t start trying to carve yourself down to their size. The pattern is there. We just have to figure out where it leads and what it’s for.”

Hiraeth sighs. “Kateos hasn’t any connection to the army, or any lords high enough to be sending the crown knights with any regularity.”

“Doesn’t have to, if he’s a cog. Could be he’s skimming when he moves goods for fellow cogs, and the crooks have their own tolerance margins, under which it’s just another cost to pass down the line. Your shoulders are a knotted mess. How do you get anything done like this?”

Hiraeth shrugs. “I don’t even notice. I lift nothing heavier than a stack of books and wield nothing sharper than a glass pen - of which, you should come by the office later and see the faceted obsidian set father gave me for my birthday.”

Julien laughs, agrees, and persuades him to lounge against his knee so he can dig his strong hands into his shoulders. It hurts, but somehow it also feels nice.


	17. Party

Another crisp morning blossoms into a glorious and golden afternoon. Zelda sits beside the wide mullion windows in her late mother’s solar, setting stitch after blasted stitch in fine silk twist, thinking about how much she hates flowers.

Not wildflowers, of course. Serendipitous blossoms scattered over green hills, going about their business without needing anybody fussing over them - Zelda loves  _ that _ sort of flower. On holidays and birthdays and the anniversary of her mother’s death - and one other day that surely marks a secret sorrow for Impa alone - her governess and bodyguard arranges for servants to hunt baskets of wildflowers to adorn her tower, wreathing her small world in the sweet fragrance of the wild.

Zelda even likes some of the garden flowers well enough, especially when the beds of safflinas and lightherb and brambleflower and sage riot over the edge of their wattle-and-memoryleaf borders. Snapdragons always look dramatic and often ridiculous. She has no particular opinion of trumpetflowers in and of themselves. The butterflies who visit them are nice though. She supposes the dense, fussy, delicate, hundred-petal roses look elegant enough in vases and pots, and some of them do add a nice, spicy fragrance to the garden in summer and early fall. But Zelda likes them far better  _ before _ the gardeners strip away the fullest blooms and prune the canes back to thorny stalks, even though they tell her the bushes and vines will stop flowering if they are  _ not _ cut back.

The flowers she truly hates are the ones on every light-blasted tapestry and colored glass window and cushion and chair and stitchery nonsense that everyone considers proper and good for the maiden princess.

“Ah- _ hem _ ,” says Impa.

Zelda stabs the innocent, hateful linen again, and checks her faint reflection in the window to be sure her expression is smooth and serene and proper. 

The herald announces the Master of the Household and the Lord Chamberlain, Master Florist and Master Draper, and the Minister of Artisans - and their assistants.

Zelda stabs another stitch into the nascent petal of an insipid violet, mostly because she is not allowed to stab the Lord Chamberlain. 

Her mother had dozens of ladies in waiting to help manage these things, and some of them stayed on with the royal household staff, but it isn’t the same. Chef Ulus is kind, and perfectly happy to run her kitchens more or less as she pleases. She sometimes asks for Zelda’s opinion on the menu, but it’s rarely more complicated than choosing beef or venison, wildberries or apples, and if Zelda tells Ulus to do what she thinks best, she will. 

But Ulus is a  _ servant _ .

Lady Giselle and Lady Karane, Lady Malara and Lady Eva are civil enough, but they are  _ old _ , and happy to stitch tapestries and ribbons and altar cloths and weave lace for the royal wardrobes exactly as they always have. For them, nothing has ever changed except  _ which _ royal sits on the royal cushions and plies the golden needles, and the golden spindles, and the golden shuttles at the golden looms. They never have any opinion on anything of importance, and their entire conversation with their Crown Princess every day consists of civilities and vapid, vague, meaningless compliments.

Zelda waits and smiles sweetly and stabs violet silk into snowy linen as the Lord Chamberlain bows and scrapes and generally makes a nuisance of himself. 

“Your Highness, it is but a fortnight to the harvest ball, and there is still so much to be done,” he says, winding his sweaty pink hands together. “The Labrynian ambassador has arrived early, adding another twenty covers to table - which is fine, it is lovely, but oh, how to balance the arrangement? We haven’t enough  _ ladies _ , with the Zora declining the invitation.”

Zelda drops the needle, lifting a gloved hand to her lips in maidenly shock. “Oh dear, has a catching fever run wild through Castletown and sent everyone to the sickroom?”

Impa coughs.

“N-not exactly, but His Majesty has already invited all the young people of tolerable rank,” he frets.

“Then let us invite young ladies of more humble means, and we will have tea in the garden before everyone else arrives.”

“But Princess - there are thousands - no,  _ hundreds _ of thousands of poor girls. We cannot invite them all,” whines the Master of Household.

She turns to the Minister of Artisans. Girls of that station won’t be highborn enough to feel slighted at being called on only to balance the guest list, but not so low as to be  _ vulgar _ . It will annoy some of the nobility, but a discreet reminder about charity should fix that. “Surely  _ you _ could recommend a few good families with eligible daughters willing to charm our neighbors in the name of a peaceful harvest?”

He bows. “ _ I _ don’t know many with girls the right age  _ and _ the means for a fancy ball, but I can ask my wife to write up a list of who  _ she _ knows.”

Zelda nods.

The Lord Chamberlain mumbles something about Nayru’s grace.

Master Dyer uses the moment of quiet to step forward with  _ his _ agenda. “Your Highness. The fullers have the plain cloth on tenterhooks, and will be ready for draping by week’s end. But. We cannot run the bunting through the printing house until we have your word on which pattern.”

“You’re very generous to offer, but it is a time of troubles for many provinces of our dear Hyrule. It would be improper to order new cloth be eaten up in festivities. We will use the same bunting as last-” she begins, her tone soft and shy.

“Princess. That is impossible,” cuts in the Master of Household. “Recall the trouble at solstice, when the maids found moths throughout the east wing?”

Zelda sighs, casting a wistful glance at the glorious afternoon on the other side of heavy glass. “Very well.”

“Ah- _ hem, _ ” says Impa.

Zelda turns back to the waiting ministers and artisans. “Purple and red madder from the Lake Districts then, with gold - not cloth-of-gold, but onion gold. It’s softer.”  _ And cheaper.  _

Dyer motions his assistants forward with piles of samples, tossing the blues and oranges and overdyed greens aside. Even so, there are more swatches than she can easily count.

“Something - simple?” Zelda murmurs, because she dares not speak any louder or she will surely scream.

Dyer’s assistants select dozens of samples, laying them out in the warm sunlight. 

“Stripes or dots?” Dyer gestures to one cluster, then another. “Or rosettes?”

Zelda sighs.


	18. Picnic

Hiraeth rouses from an unexpected nap with Julien pinching his neck and trying to warn him the twins are crossing the meadow. Two breaths later, a hail of crabapples rain over them both, some overripe and rotten and muddy, soiling his tan houndstooth waistcoat.

Hiraeth sighs, gathering his discipline to sit up. He is thankful Julien talked him into shrugging out of his walnut brown dress coat an hour ago and folding it inside-out as a pillow. “Another successful siege engine Ishi, but ill advised. This time you  _ will _ be paying your allowance to Mister d’Oro for getting his fine coat dirty, or so help me, I’ll see you grounded the rest of festival.”

“Aw hibi, you’re no fun,” she whines from somewhere above them in the arbor.

Julien laughs and brushes bits of leaf from his hair. “Stars but you’ve grown stern under Vah Dano’s hand. A good wash will set it right again - and there’s no need to pick a child’s pocketbook to pay the laundress. Ahah - no, I will hear nothing of principles of any matters, so you can save your breath.”

Hiraeth snorts, and rolls to his knees. “As an  _ officer _ you should know better than to weaken their discipline being too soft with these implings.”

“Alas, I am merely a  _ midlist _ officer on an undistinguished ship assigned to a  _ technically _ hazardous but remarkably uncontested patrol route, and therefore know nothing of discipline at all,” teases Julien, pushing to his feet to signal the twins with his cerise silk handkerchief. They wave in turn with opposite hands, carrying a heavy basket between them. 

Hiraeth grumbles and curses him, but his complaints are cut short by Saso’s piercing cry. She sprints across the meadow to fling herself at him, knocking him off balance. He plays up the fall, rolling along the gentle slope and inventing some vapid nonsense about slain beasts and betrayal, woe and curses. 

Saso giggles at first, but when he settles on his back with his arm thrown over his face, she frets. He bites his tongue and holds his breath, playing dead. Ishi giggles. Saso is not so certain, and approaches with great caution, her tentative queries squeaky with worry. Julien tries to ease her mind, but she has trouble with his accented Hylian, and she circles around opposite him.

When Hiraeth is more-or-less certain she can’t see his other hand, he signals Julien for silence. Julien swears, and urges him in Labrynnan to give up his charade, that he is upsetting the poor, innocent little girl. 

_ Naive outlander.  _ Hiraeth does not move. 

Hiraeth’s continued silence begins to raise even Ishi’s doubts, though her Labrynan is good enough she should have at least caught the general thrust of Julien’s rebuke.

Saso tentatively pokes Hiraeth’s stomach. 

Hiraeth’s lungs ache from holding his breath so long.

Saso pokes him again, harder.

He waits.

Saso utters a wordless, worried mumble, edging closer and leaning over him, trying to peer at his face. She pokes her little fingers into his chest. 

Hiraeth lunges up with a roar, capturing her in his arms. He growls and pretends to gnaw on her bright hair.

Saso shrieks in surprise, and even Ishi yelps. Julien swears at him. The twins - who by this point are close enough to hear the chime of their belled jewelry - laugh and exclaim that the Questing Beast has seized their most beloved sister. They demand Ishi join them in a quest for revenge, and threaten Julien grievous harm if he should dare stop them. 

Hiraeth groans, but drags himself to his feet, tucking Saso under his arm like a sack of turnips and setting off across the meadow at a brisk pace. By the time the twins manage to catch up to him, hampered with their beloved fashionable heeled shoes and long layered skirts as they are, he is more than ready to  _ be _ tackled into a hedge where he can maybe catch his wind. 

Except they figure out how to tickle him through the waistcoat. 

Hiraeth decides he is glad that Julien stayed with their coats and lunch basket.

The game ends when the town guard comes around to their side of the garden on his circuit and demands to know what Hiraeth thinks he is about, bothering these helpless young ladies. Myra and Kyra turn on the poor man, hounding him away with a vehemence that would make their mother preen if only she could hear it. 

Julien laughs when it turns out the girls brought a heavy blanket for picnicking. Hiraeth grumbles about their conspiracy to henpeck him away from his work, but in truth it is nice to sit in the sunlight and listen to their affectionate bickering. It is in moments of silence that his mind returns to the problem of Kateos, and even if it is not written all over  _ his _ face, Julien is not even half so guarded. 

The twins say half the town is talking about the hearings. Apparently six weeks of wasting his time attending the Lower Court has persuaded many that Kateos  _ must _ be guilty of something  _ truly _ heinous if even a thiefborn bastard insists on dragging the man to the courts.

Hiraeth’s good mood evaporates.

“Ugh, don’t take it like that hibi. So it’s a rude way to put it. So what. They’re on our side this time,” says Myra. 

“The side they  _ ought _ to be on is of truth and rightful law. We have no proof of anything until the evidence we actually have is balanced against Councillor Batoh’s allegation,” says Hiraeth, annoyed that the girls are making him defend a crooked steward.

Saso leans against his knee. “What if he confesses?”

“No rational creature willfully stands before arbiters of Law and says ‘not only have I done this thing you caught me at, but ten others even worse’ and take those chocolates away Jules, or I will tell Ishi to box your ears. I  _ just _ got this waistcoat back from the tailor and there is no more seam to let out after this.”

“Good riddance to drab weeds,” scoffs Julien. He eats another honeycake himself, though it would take a cartload to soften  _ his _ physique. “Anyways Ishi already ruined it with her apple-pult didn't she? Also you look better with some actual meat on those giant bones. Healthier.”

“What I look is  _ fat _ . Nothing drapes properly and every day the creases from pulling at every button have to be ironed and starched to the Lake Districts and back or my waistcoat resembles a washboard by lunch,” grumbles Hiraeth.

“Maybe you shouldn’t slouch,” teases Julien, though everyone knows he  _ never _ slouches. He just has to duck under every godsforgotten door and stoop half the time he’s in a shop.

“He’s not a rational creature though,” says Kyra. “Kateos I mean. He inherited a good station in life, with a generous employer and every good thing, yet he imperiled it all for what? A few years’ worth of extra salary? If he  _ was _ determined to steal more than his rights, he could have just cheated his way into an even wealthier household, or a rich marriage, or made a fortune for himself in a few years and left the country before anyone ever noticed.”

“What if we  _ make _ him confess?” Ishi sits forward in excitement, biting her lip.

“Avha, that’s not how it’s done,” says Hiraeth, accepting a chocolate after all. Only because his temper is soured and he doesn’t want to snap at the girls. They mean well. 

Saso tips her head back to look up at him. “Is it against the rules?” 

“It is dishonorable,” begins Hiraeth.

Myra makes a rude noise all out of keeping with her fine clothes. “That only counts for peers and knights.”

“Happily, none of  _ us _ are either peers  _ or _ knights,” says Kyra with a sly grin.

“Even if I humored your mad scheme, which I won’t, just because he’s paid enough money to still live in his own house doesn’t mean he’s not still under heavy guard. It’s impossible to get near him outside of the hearing without royal permission,” points out Hiraeth.

“Happily, we know an excellent forger,” says Myra, sipping at her bottle of spiced lemonade. 

Hiraeth frowns.

Ishi giggles, drawing from behind her back a blue-and-gold-leaf envelope.

“ _ Vento e onda _ ,” cries Julien, patting his pockets, then peering in them, as if looking at them will change their empty state. “He’s right, you’re all implings to the bone. Give it back - I’m not handsome enough to be allowed at the royal harvest ball without it Miss Ishi.”

“ _ Only _ after he agrees to write a letter,” says Ishi, threatening to stuff the invitation in  _ her _ lemonade. 

Hiraeth swears. 

He borrows the lapis-and-gold ink from Vah Dano’s desk that evening anyway. Just to see if he really  _ can _ imitate the Crown Princess’ signature, given the right tools.

Ishi startles him half to death later that night, popping out of nowhere in the middle of his room. He goes to the door intending to throw her out, but it’s still locked. And so are the windows.

Ishi laughs, and shows him a strange gray mask painted like a rain-splattered rock, urging him to put it on. He tries to show her it is a child’s mask and far too small, but somehow once he raises it into place, it isn’t. He feels strange and tingly wearing it, so he unlocks his door to get fresh water and check his reflection in the washroom mirror.

Kyra runs right into him in the hallway. She swears at Ishi under her breath and ignores his offer of a hand up, getting to her feet again. She doesn’t answer him when he asks about her strange black and purple outfit either, but resumes her course down the hall to spy over the loft rail at their parents. 

Link is sitting by the fire, spinning wool on his old thornwood weaver’s spindle, ignoring his wife. A mug of tea rests on the table at his side, and a half-empty decanter sits beside that.

Hiraeth hisses at Kyra, but she continues to ignore him. He does not want to draw his parents' attention, so he tries to retreat, only collide with Myra in turn. He falls, and drops the mask. The twins swear, and downstairs, his stepmother yelps, demanding to know what that noise was. 

Hiraeth groans, wagging his finger at all three girls. They only giggle, and he realizes they are all dressed the same. 

Footsteps thump up the stairs.

Ishi presses the mask into his hands again. 

Hiraeth frowns, lifting the mask as Link gains the landing below the loft. His blue eyes spark with anger, and he orders the girls back to their beds. He pauses in the hall beside Hiraeth, frowning harder. He sweeps his gaze all around him, and even looks up. 

Hiraeth stares in baffled horror as his father shakes his head and stalks away without a word to his masked son, making sure the girls obey.

Two hours after nadir, he stands in the house of a near stranger, wondering if he has in fact fallen asleep over his reading and has dreamed up this whole farce out of sheer frustration. Kateos cowers away from the four veiled and masked trespassers he can see, but they catch him and drag him to his bedroom, whispering a hundred million threats, and a thousand accusations of indelicate behavior with alarming specificity.

Kateos denys all of it, of course. 

Hiraeth stands at the man’s bedroom window as his sisters and his best friend push the man around. The guards below lean on their spears and yawn. 

Hiraeth removes the stone-like mask. 

Kateos screams.

“You can either continue fighting this and hang for treason,” rumbles Hiraeth, glancing over his shoulder to watch the crook tremble under the claws of his captors. “Or. You can tell us who you’re working for and let  _ them _ swing.”

“You - you’re that bastard-born clerk,” cries Kateos in horror.

Hiraeth lets the silence stretch, amused that for once, his sisters hold their tongues. 

Julien wraps his corded arm around the man’s neck in a practiced chokehold, a hair shy of pinching the carotid artery. He lets the man feel the depth of his peril and cowardice in silence.

“Hn,” grunts Hiraeth, looking up at the indifferent moon. “How much do you love your boss?”


	19. Audience

Blossoms kiss the distant apple trees as the last of the snow retreats to the mountains. The Minister of Finance sends letter after letter, requesting a private audience with the Princess on a religious question of some delicacy. 

Zelda invites him to walk with her in the outer gardens. Mostly because men do not become Ministers for being good at walking. 

He is red-faced and breathless when he meets her beside the lotus fountain five minutes early. Impa fades into the shadows as he bows and scrapes and compliments her radiance with all the correct and proper forms. 

“You are kind to join me this morning - the weather this spring seems to agree with no one else,” says Zelda with a shy smile. Maidens are modest and graceful and soft.

“What care could I have for a little wind when my heart is warmed by the grace of Your Highness? It is many years since I last walked these little paths,” he said, falling into step beside her.

“Oh? I didn’t know you had connections among the castle staff,” began Zelda.

“I don’t. Nor have I any wish to bore you with ancient history,” he said, waving his gloved hand in a dismissive fashion. “The late Queen, Light guard her memory, would be pleased to see how these evergreen clematis thrive under your care.”

Zelda pauses, uncertain how to demur without an outright lie. The gardeners complain of the eternal work of wrangling these white-flowered vines, but she has nothing to do with the health of any plant except as she orders it removed or spared the axe and shovel. “I did not realize you were fond of gardens.”

The Minister laughs, short and sharp, folding his hands behind his back. His hazel eyes drift over the chilly landscape, a strange look of forced cheer fixed on his face. “It is a pleasure I have little opportunity to indulge. But I did not come here to trouble you with the regrets of an old man.”

“No trouble at all,” she says, smiling to encourage him even as her thoughts whirl around his unexpected allusions.  _ What painful memories could the Minister possibly find in these formal paths and rigid shrubberies? What do cold gardens have to do with the theological question he sought an audience for? _ “The health and happiness of every Hylian is my highest concern after devotion to the Light. How may I ease your heart Minister?”

He smiles at the flowers and walks with her in silence for a few minutes. “I must apologize for misrepresenting myself Princess. My petition is less a matter of faith than - fidelity. I have served fair Hyrule for half a century, and happy I am that my little talents are of use to crown and council. The work is - for me - its own reward, but as Minister I am directly responsible for the welfare of the auditors and councillors and accountants and clerks under my authority. Many of them are rich only in the hopes and vigor of youth. An expert archer is celebrated everywhere, but achieving equally accurate numbers is neither glorious nor exciting. I know circumstances make it impossible to raise wages this year, so I come to seek your wisdom in devising other means to honor their service in the difficult times I see ahead of us.”

“So. There is already trouble over the arrest of the Marquis of Natte,” says Zelda, dismayed that Impa hadn’t told her.

“Not yet, but there will be. Kateos’ testimony alone isn’t enough to secure a profiteering case against him without public sentiment firmly behind us - and steadfast hearts in the ministry itself. Numbers - and their guardians - are as vulnerable to manipulation of the wealthy as arrows are to the wind.”

“Minister, forgive me but - I thought he was to be charged with tax evasion. Profiteering would be treason,” says Zelda.  _ Traitors forfeit their lives - and their fortunes. Neatly solving the problem of how to pay the legions to reinforce Vosterkun against bandits.  _ **_If_ ** _ it’s true.  _

“That is the official warrant, to postpone the inevitable outcry when full charges are laid. Thanks entirely to the work of a promising young clerk uncovering the big rat hiding behind a small one, and all without even a crumb of magic.”

_ You mean you want funds to bribe this poor clerk to stand behind a questionable analysis when the scandal goes public. _ “A heart that can be swayed from duty by a few gold rupee has neither faith nor fidelity needing honored.”

The Minister laughs again, sharp as before. “With all due respect Princess, the investigation has already unearthed far more than a  _ few _ . The implications of a minor marquis managing to evade our notice for this long with the help of a few bribes and a little magic makes our duty clear. We need to audit  _ all _ the peerage.”

_ There will be riots. This is the opposite of ending the civil war _ . “How many souls would you send to the Arbiters on a mere suspicion of greed?”

“I don’t know,” confesses the Minister, meeting her eye. He  _ seems _ candid, but that could be nothing more than the long practice in political maneuvering. “Unfortunately, the investigation into the Marquis fetches up against a dead end every time we try to pin down exactly  _ how _ he’s managed to fleece the royal quartermasters  _ and _ hundreds of merchants for decades undetected. It is not possible to carry out such a vast deception alone - but neither can I prove beyond a doubt that the Marquis conspired to goad rebellion and defraud the crown unless we can definitively solve his ciphers and crack his network open.”

“I will lay your petition before the Light, but the blessed ones more often speak to us in symbols and poetry than in the sort of concrete evidence you seek,” Zelda warns him softly. 

“My dear radiant Princess, I do not need a prophecy but a plum. Give me your blessing to bring this attentive, mageblind clerk under my wing as a full auditor. With the - ah -  _ proper tools _ , I am certain he can uncover the truth.”

_ And what if there  _ **_isn’t_ ** _ a conspiracy to profiteer from the wars? Truthsight charms won’t fabricate one for you, and even if you seed rumors for the magic to echo, arbiters do not admit gossip. _ Zelda tries not to fidget with the tassels on her belt. “You know this youth well enough to entrust him with blessed relics?” 

“Excellence should be rewarded. Better we encourage loyal service to the crown than his own interests. I understand there are many sisters to provide for - and protect,” says the Minister with a sardonic grin.


	20. Reward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, sorry everyone that I was a little bit late getting this one up. I actually forgot what day of the week it was completely, probably in self defense. The fourth of April is a Heavy Day. 
> 
> Have a little bit of light in the form of a smol chapter.

It is three days to summer recess of the Upper Court in the year Hiraeth will be eighteen, and the Marquis of Natte is convicted of treason. He and half his household are sentenced to the Penitent Wastes for life. Arhin Kateos screams obscenities when the arbiter strips him of title and the magistrates lead him away - he foolishly expected pardon for informing on his employer.

Counselor Batoh thanks Vah Dano for loaning the work of his apprentice to the investigation, and turns the conversation to the cases docketed for the Lower Courts after the recess. Hiraeth packs his papers away and waits for the noisy crowd to follow the condemned so he can leave. He does not like the way the gentry and the knights watch him. They have nothing to fear from his work so long as their records are honest - and if they are not, they have no right whatever to be angry when they get caught. 

A gently-rounded middle aged man with thinning white hair descends from the public gallery, his step unhurried as he moves opposite the other spectators. Hiraeth decides he must be some friend of Batoh, and looks away to double-check the clasp on his satchel and untangle the strap from the beastly small spindle-bench he’d set it on. He hates that he is so clumsy, but City people don’t tease him for it half so much as his home village did. In Castletown it is expected and understood that scholars are neither graceful nor strong.

“Hiraeth Vohenia. You do not look pleased by your victory,” says the stranger, standing beside the bench with his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his blue coat. Brushed wool with a broad silk collar and cuffs, despite the warm season.

“To derive entertainment from the misadventures of fools is the height of vulgarity,” quotes Hiraeth, glancing down at the man. 

He grins, hazel eyes bright. “Because _of_ _course_ the rustic clerk reads Orochaim. Your talents are wasted on the small life of a recordkeeper.”

Hiraeth raises a brow, but the older man gives no ground. “It is only in records the hidden truths of the world may be glimpsed by mortals. The study and caretaking of the ledgers of a modest house preserves the pattern of the nation it belongs to in a profound way. What is seen but not recorded may be lost in a single sharp moment. To bring a corruptor of records to account before the Law can never be a pleasure, as it necessitates the corruption in the first place.”

The stranger laughs, short and sharp, somehow reminding him of his father, who has said nothing about the long trial at all. “A devotee of Adorno as well. I like your spirit, young man.”

Hiraeth bows, because he has noticed the royal crest on the man’s watch fob, and the subtle elongated hex lattice pattern of his sateen waistcoat.

The Minister of Finance laughs again, and draws from one deep pocket a slender ebony case with inlaid gold flourishes that remind him of his cittern. “In honor of your devotion to your work, a gift you may find of - ah - some little use.”

Hiraeth accepts the little box with what dignity he can assemble, expecting to find a fancy pen or slide rule inside. Instead, he stares in baffled awe at a pair of lapis-and-garnet accented pince-nez nestled in black silk velvet and fixed to a tidy coil of golden minish chain. “These are beautiful, but my sight is not so poor as to-”

“No soul was ever born who could not use a little refinement to their perception.” The Minister leans in with a conspiratorial wink. “You hold in your hands genuine Sheikah enchantment, my boy.”

Hiraeth snorts, snapping the box closed. “Magic is a folly of children’s stories and superstition a weakness of the ignorant. There are rational explanations for everything in this world. _ ” Only the stupid and those who prey on them believe the world moves by magic. _

The Minister chuckles. “On the contrary,  _ magic _ is a convenient little box to catch those ineffable things that would otherwise be neglected by the limitations of your modern science.”

“To assign as-yet unstudied or unexplained phenomena to an immaterial and omnipotent force is the height of intellectual laziness, and serves only to delay proper investigation and corrupt the collection of clear data,” says Hiraeth, turning the box in his hands and trying not to think about the strange gray mask Ishi steals for him sometimes, to cloak his clumsiness when the girls persuade him to join their mischief. 

The Minister leans his hip against the long barrister's table, folding his arms over his broad chest. “Can you explain why a jeweler’s loupe works?”

Hiraeth glances about the nearly empty court, grateful his sisters are not witness to this embarrassment. “All lenses operate on a simple mechanical principal of manipulating reflected light through a curved glass to magnify-”

“Of course,” says the Minister with a dismissive flick of one hand. “But  _ why _ does it work?”

Hiraeth says nothing because he can already see that speaking of the inherent reflective and refractive properties of glass will only prompt another  _ why _ , to which he has no answer at all.

The Minister grins up at him like a self-satisfied cat. “ _ Why _ does bending light through a lens make things appear larger or smaller? Why does it work differently for objects that are more or less reflective by nature, or emit their own light? Why does the loupe still function under water, when water itself bends light?”

“It is my understanding that scholars and scientists worldwide are presently engaged with that very question,” begins Hiraeth.

“Well there you go,” says the Minister, pushing upright and offering his hand in belated greeting. Hiraeth accepts this compliment also, because he cannot think how to politely refuse the connection  _ after _ engaging a conversation with the man. “Enjoy your holiday Mister Hiraeth - we will have work for you soon enough.”

Hiraeth watches him stroll from the court with the same self-assurance as he entered it, realizing too late the Minister had seized hold of his strings before he even said a word.

Vah Dano snorts, clapping him on the back because he cannot reach Hiraeth’s shoulder when he is standing. “Figures. You  _ just _ paid off your desk, and here you go buying another.”

“I didn’t accept the job yet,” rumbles Hiraeth, glaring at the fancy ebony case in his hands.

Dano snorts again. “Don’t be stupid. Who holds the pursestrings of a nation possesses a power greater than any crown or title in it.”


	21. Story

Castletown empties as the year grows warmer, as everyone with the resources to move to the open country until harvest leaves town after solstice. Zelda is glad of the quiet, and the rare pleasure of solitary hours to study or train as she pleases. Every summer, she lets people believe she retreats from court to mourn her mother, and spends whole _weeks_ living as Sheik in the Kakariko foothills to the east.

Sometimes Sheik wishes summer could last forever.

The day they’re supposed to leave for the foothills, Impa is struck with a sudden fever, and stumbles during morning practice. The royal physician says it is a common and mild affliction, and doses her with red potion. Impa herself says the headache is more troublesome than the fever, and the groggy fuzz of the potion worse than both.

Zelda scolds her for overworking herself, and threatens to play the magic harp at her if she refuses to rest.

Impa makes a rude face and settles into a meditation pose in the royal shrine on the ground floor of the Crown Princess’ tower. It isn’t bedrest as the physician recommended, but perhaps near enough to count. For her.

Sheik waits only long enough for Impa to fall asleep on her cushion. He climbs over the walls and skirts through the twilight gardens towards the only freedom he’s ever known. He challenges himself to improve his best time climbing the gatehouse towers, and races his own shadow across the lush, hilly meadows stretching between the castle and town.

He does _not_ go for a swim in the swift tributaries circling the castle and the town, but only because he doesn’t want to give away his eavesdropping by dripping all over strangers’ houses. He wanders through and above the town, listening to the gossip and the small, strange troubles of common people and sprawling families. By the time he reaches the artisans’ quarter, it is late enough the dark-voiced storyteller should be encouraging the younger girls to calm themselves for bed.

But when he crouches in the shadows beside the chimneystack, Sheik hears Saso complain to her sisters that ‘hibi’ is working late, again. Myra and Kyra try to soothe her, without success. Over a year and more of eavesdropping, Sheik has decided they are twins, probably, though Sheik has never managed to see enough through the parting of the curtains to be sure. He supposes even in Castletown there cannot be many families with a pair of teenage girls by such names, but he hesitates to snoop through tax records to find out. It seems vulgar somehow, when he would have no cause for curiosity at all but for an accident of idleness.

Sheik is on the point of leaving, both disappointed to have missed the storyteller and ashamed of longing to hear this stranger spin tales for children, when a sharp tattoo echoes through the house below. The girls shriek in glee, and Sheik laughs into his hand to hear them run across the room to attack their father.

But when he chides them in his roughened and breathless voice, he is _not_ the storyteller. “Enough - you are crushing me, sweetlings. What mischief is gotten into your bright little heads tonight? You saw me not three hours ago at dinner.”

“Baba, we just miss you. You always work so much and now hibi is off being _important_ too and working _forever_ and ever and ever and we never see _anyone_ interesting,” whines Saso.

The girls’ father sighs. “That isn’t true at all. Your brother was home all day _every_ day for nearly a fortnight, and _tomorrow_ the Fuller children come to visit, and _next_ week-”

“Want hibi _now_ ,” cries Leela.

Sheik creeps closer to the edge of the slate roof. _Brother?_ Sheik has never heard of a young man choosing to live with his parents and a house full of small children if he has any independent income at all.

The father sighs. “I know, littlest. But he is working on a very important commission for very important people that _must_ be done before harvest. He is doing good work, and you mustn’t give him any trouble about it, even if he is out late on many nights in the coming weeks.”

The younger girls cry, and the elder ones complain, and the father sounds strangely sad when he tells them his son’s absence is necessary and good. That they must satisfy themselves with whatever time he _can_ spare, and give him no trouble whatever when his duties claim his full attention.

Then again, noble families are different than common ones, and Sheik cannot imagine what it would be like to have siblings to miss, or a father fond of his company and no interest in marrying his offspring to the richest suitor on offer.

“Fine. So he has to work, so what,” says Ishi in a tone that says nothing is fine at all. “I’m _still_ not going to bed without a story, so there.”

The father sighs again. “No matter how hard you fight it, we don’t always get what we want in life. You _all_ must go to bed on time tonight because you _all_ must go to school tomorrow and do your very best at _all_ your lessons so you will grow up strong and wise and fearless.”

“Like hibi?” Ishi asks, disingenuous.

Sheik bites his tongue when the girls’ father takes the bait.

“Well how are we supposed to manage _that_ without his _stories_?”

“Ishi - you _will_ have to learn to do what is right someday without someone else telling you. No more arguing. It is past time for you to go to sleep.”

“Oh baba, it’s not _that_ . We just don’t know how to _sleep_ without a story. That’s different,” says one of the older girls. Probably Myra. “How about _you_ tell us a story tonight?”

“I am - not good at inventing stories,” says their father. “You will have to be patient and ask your brother some other-”

“You don’t have to _invent_ one baba,” says the other elder girl, probably Kyra. “Here, I will find a book for you.”

“I am not good at reading either,” says their father, his voice thinning.

“I bet I can find an easy one,” says Ishi.

“With pictures!” Saso chimes in.

“I know just the thing. There is a book hibi always says he will read but never has. It’s supposed to be full of silly stories,” says Myra, hurrying out of the room with a click of fashionable heeled shoes. If she is not of age yet, she surely will be soon.

“I’ll help,” cries Ishi, rushing after her. Which probably means the book is hidden somewhere they aren’t supposed to go. Sheik has listened to them enough to know she is the wildest of the five little girls.

“Don’t frown so much baba, it has nice pictures. I snuck a look at it when I was little, before I could read. Saso, bring some cushions over,” says Kyra.

Their father sighs, and the wooden box-bed groans when he sinks down on it. Sheik hangs upside down over the window, trying to see what he looks like through the little gap in the curtains, but he is sitting in the middle of one of the beds and all he can glimpse is a dusty black boot, plain buckskins, a white shirt, and a bit of golden hair framing a long pointed ear. _A Hylian of good breeding, despite his odd provincial accent. Or maybe a by-blow, since he cannot read well._

The girls return swiftly enough, and there is a brief argument about who gets to sit where. Leela wins the apparently envied position sitting on her father’s knee, against Saso’s strident objections. The man himself says nothing for a while, but eventually the girls fall silent, and Sheik catches his rough whisper drifting through the open window.

“Where did you find this?”

“We didn’t steal it. It was just on the shelf with all the rest,” says Ishi, though Sheik has his doubts of that.

“Pretty green ribbon,” says Leela. “Read the ribbon story baba?”

Sheik listens to a strange soft creaking squeak fall from a stranger’s tongue, and wonders what they have found.

“Read it,” urges Saso.

“The cucco who - tried to - hatch a pumpkin,” murmurs the man.

“Baba - why are you crying? It’s just a silly fable,” says Kyra, clearly baffled.

Their father sniffles, stammering his way through a half-answer. “This book was a - a kind of gift. Long ago. Bad things happened. I put it away because I couldn’t look at it. I don’t know how you children found this. And the ribbon - still in place.”

“Oooh, maybe the story under the ribbon is a message from the one who gave it to you? Now you _have_ to read it!” The twins cry in unison.

“Oooh is it a secret love letter? From before momma? Is it a _romantic_ story?” Saso swoons.

“I - I don’t think so. Maybe. That would - be - very bad. Let’s read something else. Anything else,” stammers their father.

But his daughters are merciless - and now Sheik too is desperate to hear both the odd little fable and the mystery attached to it.

“What’s bad about a romance? Ugh baba, you’re no fun. Here, I will start it for you,” says Myra. “ _Once upon a time tomorrow, there was a cucco with no eggs. Try as she might to lay them, dreaming of the day she too would have a fuzzy chick to follow her everywhere, every morning she woke alone and eggless._ ”

“Yuck, that is _not_ a good beginning,” scoffs Saso.

“Hush, stupid. All the best adventures start in hard places,” says Ishi. “What is there to even _do_ if the world is already perfect?”

“One night she couldn’t even bear to sit in her nest with the other cucco anymore, and fled into the wild to hide instead. Soon enough she was lost, and sat under a tree to feel sorry for herself,” continues Myra.

“Stupid cucco,” says Leela.

“See, that’s not so bad,” says Kyra gently.

Their father sniffles, and with a rustle of paper he takes the book back. “ _Who disturbs my rest?_ Asked the owl in the tree.”

“ _Now_ it will get exciting,” says Ishi.

“ _I didn’t know anyone lived here_ , said the cucco. _I only sat to rest a moment and cry, because I am alone._ The owl hooted in - in censure: _Everyone is alone, silly cucco. What use is it feeling sad about it? Who,_ ” says their father, his thin voice stumbling and breaking over the words. “ _Who are you to - challenge the design of the gods?_ ”

“Don’t cry baba. This is just the start of the adventure, the first challenge,” says Kyra. “The story always turns after the hero meets a challenge.”

Their father sniffles again, and his voice trembles, and he stammers and through another page. “The cucco - became angry. She flew at the owl and - beat him about the head saying: _who are you to - speak for the gods?_ ”

“Oh baba, it will be ok. You’ll see,” says Myra, though Sheik hears the unease in her voice. It is strange to hear a man weep at all, and it is obviously not common in this house either.

“Here, _I_ will read it,” says Ishi. “ _For all you know it is their will that I have left the safety of my flock to seek my egg. Watch me, foolish owl, for I will find it, and it will be the best egg that ever was._ ”

Their father sobs harder. The other girls argue that Ishi and Myra have read it wrong to upset him so much, and in the middle of the fight, Saso snatches the book and runs across the room to stand under the window and read. “ _Cucco came to a strange field full of vines and leaves as big as she was. She was afraid, but she continued, thinking of the egg waiting for her. And on the morning of the fourth day, she found the most wonderful egg ever._ Except it’s not an egg in the picture at all, it’s a pumpkin. She is not a very smart cucco.”

“I think - we need to check the ending,” says Kyra, in between soothing nonsense noises, vainly trying to calm her father and little Leela who must be too young to understand much past the fact that her father is sad.

“That’s cheating,” cries Ishi.

“Only a little. It’s important,” says Myra. “Bring it here Saso, so I can look.”

Ishi stomps her feet to take the book from Saso - or maybe they are both standing by the window with it, turning pages. Sheik clutches the edge of the roof, anxious for all of them. _Why is a grown man upset over the follies of an imaginary bird?_

“ _But_ ,” growls Ishi.

“That is not a good word in stories,” agrees Saso.

Paper rustles.

Sheik holds his breath.

“That’s not right,” says Ishi at last. “Where’s the rest?”

“But it’s not torn - is it a chapter-story?” Saso asks.

“No, this one is about a cow. How can it just _end_? That’s not right at all.”

“Let me see it,” says Myra again. “The stories might alternate between - no, none of the rest are about cucco at all. This is the only one. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Where’d the cucco go? Why is the pumpkin broken?” Leela demands, and when her sisters do not answer, she howls louder, as if an answer only awaits more noise. The older girls try to hush her, and her every screech provokes another sob from her father.

Sheik decides whatever tragedy surrounds the gift of the fable book must be very bad indeed. He hangs from the gutter to peer through the curtains again. His stomach churns to see the golden-haired stranger weeping and rocking in grief, his face buried in Leela’s bright coppery curls, being comforted by three of his daughters. _That isn’t how it’s supposed to work._

Myra stalks to the lamp and turns the wick up. She stands in profile between the window and the light, but her sharp features betray the stamp of Gerudo heritage. There is no time to be shocked by it though, for she stops turning pages and reads: “ _You can’t change the nature of things by wishing._ What an absolutely horrid sort of moral. If it could be called _moral_ at all. What kind of stupid fables are these? Are they all this awful?”

“We should _burn_ it,” says Ishi.

“The very next one is about destiny, but I think it - might end better? Or needs just a little fixing maybe,” says Myra, frowning over the little casebound volume. “Ok, a lot of fixing,”

“Bad story,” cries Leela.

“ _I_ can fix that,” says Ishi, storming across the room to snatch the book from her sister. Myra scrambles to take it back, and they both tug on it like hounds with a bit of old rope. “Leggo - what use a _stupid_ book full of _wrong_ stories?”

“No, please. _Stop_ ,” begs their father. “Don’t hurt it.”

“Why not? The book hurts _you_ . And you _said_ you couldn't look at it, so what difference does it make? It’s a stupid book with stupid bad stories full of lies,” shouts Ishi, growling at her sister.

“Stop, it hurts,” sobs their father, rocking on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t _like_ it,” wails Leela. “Fix the pumpkin baba! The cucco is sad. Fix it better. Put the cucco’s feathers back.”

“What’s that-? Stop a second, something fell,” says Kyra. “Pick it up Saso, it might be important.”

Saso scrambles to collect a scrap of paper from the floor. “It looks like hibi’s letters.”

Their father only weeps.

Kyra rises from her cushion at his knee to sit beside him, holding out a hand to take the note from Saso. The curtain moves just enough to see her striking Gerudo features clearly as she frowns over the note. “There’s an address on one side. A bookshop. I don’t know that street but I bet we can find it... _'Abridged printing, six part, H-four._ _Taryn’s Tales,_ _Holodrun, eight plus, inc C hatch_ _from_ \- with a double underline - _pumpkin, no illo’_. He probably means Harkinian the fourth, he censored lots of stuff. So there might be a different version of the story in the Holodrun translation. A happier one.”

“Please, don’t break it. Can’t fix it. Was the - last thing he left. With the green,” sobs their father, holding out a trembling hand to take the abused book and cradle it to his chest. “Please, our secret?”

The girls exchange a look, and gather around him again, promising not to tell anyone, not even hibi.

Sheik creeps away from the little house, ashamed of intruding on this stranger’s grief. He goes directly to the royal archive, picking the lock to dig through the stacks at midnight, looking for any copy or reference to Taryn’s Tales he can find.


	22. Holiday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of a long chapter this week, but I think, in the end, it's important...

Summer heat lingers over Castletown in the year Hiraeth turns eighteen. Sickness breeds in the poor quarters, and there are rumors of wildfires in the western provinces. Prices rise even in Central Hyrule, and people whisper in the marketplace that the Zora are behind it all, as revenge for insults at the winter summit. 

The Minister of Finance issues orders that any ministry clerk speculating on the matter be suspended without pay for a week. A servant brings Julien’s calling card to his desk a few days to equinox. Hiraeth marks his place in the ledger and declares the office too hot to think. The floor supervisor tries to stop him at the door, sputtering something about duty. 

Hiraeth makes a polite - and deliberately loud - inquiry after the man’s family in Kakariko and how the roof repairs are coming along after the hot ash plumes on Death Mountain and if the last shipment of slate from the Lake District proved as flawed as the one before it.

He does not see the trap in the questions - or notice the Minister’s secretary pause in the hallway to overlisten. 

They are  _ both _ suspended for a week for violating the sacred objectivity of the service with  _ politics  _ and  _ libel, _ and Hiraeth is not surprised when a courier interrupts dinner with a note from the Minister himself.

“Oooh hibi, issit a love letter?” Saso demands to know, propping her elbows on the table.

Hiraeth rolls his eyes and slips a tableknife under the wax seal, provoking his stepmother to swear. Link doesn’t look up from his dinner, cutting a tiny piece from the roast poultry and eating it mechanically. Then a tiny wedge of honey glazed pumpkin. A forkful of creamed turnip greens. Meat. Pumpkin. Greens. 

“Well, read it already,” says Ishi, gesturing with her fork.

His stepmother throws her napkin on the table and glares at Link. “My children are become mannerless feral cats.  _ Do _ something, husband. They listen to  _ you _ .”

Silence.

Meat. Pumpkin. Greens.

Hiraeth deliberately crackles the heavy paper as he unfolds the note.

Link eats a slice of pumpkin and does not look up.

“Ahem,” says Hiraeth, sweeping his gaze over the table.

Link’s ears have perked up by the smallest degree, though he does not break the plodding rhythm of his meal or raise his cold blue eyes.

“Vohenia _ , _ ” intones Hiraeth stern and sober, though he allows a little ghost of a smirk when Leela giggles at him. “Next time you wish an idle holiday, it would be a great service to this country if you would deign to lift your pen and send a  _ bloody _ note.”

Myra snorts and wriggles in her chair, elbowing Kyra.

“Oh for the love of-  _ must _ you swear at the dinner table my son? Really. And in front of your gentle sisters - stop laughing Ishi. One would think this entire household just blew in from the lawless forests,” grumbles his stepmother.

“I merely relay the words of my honored employer with absolute faithfulness,” says Hiraeth lightly, folding the paper in a tidy little square. “I find I am  _ excessively _ troubled to receive his censure, and require a physick.”

Kyra nearly chokes on her watered wine.

His stepmother is not amused. “What mischief are you after this time?”

Hiraeth gestures with the folded paper, pretending an innocence no one believes. “Fresh country air is considered sovereign remedy for choler, is it not? My appetite is surely slain by this sorry news - but a little walk abroad should begin the cure.”

“Nothing about outside is fresh in this town in summer,” counters Saso.

“You are wise beyond your years avha, I shall take your words as my banner, and direct my feet to the post-house without delay to see what fine beasts they might hire out to an ailing man,” says Hiraeth, daring a glance at his father.

Link meets his eye for barely a moment when he reaches for his glass. He says nothing, and his brows are drawn together as if he would frown, but a telltale quirk tugs at the corner of his lips, betraying his curiosity if nothing else.

His stepmother narrows her eyes and folds her arms, dinner forgotten. “Go, waste your rupee on entertaining that Fuller boy if you must. But you  _ may not  _ disrupt your sisters’ tutoring. They are well behind their yearmates in every gentle art, and when word of your suspension reaches the streets, there will be only more difficulty.”

“But momma,” whines Leela. “What if they go see the horsies? I haven’t seen Malon in for _ ever. _ She will forget me!”

“She will not, we just  _ went _ to the ranch two weeks ago,” says Kyra. 

“But that wasn’t  _ really _ the ranch, that was just the edge of the orchard, and we were barely even there an hour,” adds Ishi.

“What if Ben takes Mika with him to the ranch? She will lord it over everyone that she got to ride the bay colt instead of me,” whines Saso.

Hiraeth clicks his tongue and taps the paper to his lips, frowning in mock concern. “You’re right mother, it is certainly not at all fair to take  _ anyone _ with me to stay half the week at LonLon if I cannot take  _ everyone _ , and I could never manage a carriage so large with eight sleek dapple mares on my own. If only we had the happy acquaintance of someone who was good with horses!”

Link snorts, drawing every eye. He props his elbow on the table and eats a slice of pumpkin thoughtfully.

Everyone holds their breath.

“Hn,” says Link, twirling the empty fork in his elegant, scarred fingers. “Can’t. Your mother and I have a prior engagement. Send to the Fullers and hire out a pair of brakes with steady old geldings. No gigs, and no phaeton, don’t care how fashionable they are. There’s a chest of Termina silks and highland vicuna in my workshop for Ellon. Each and every one of you girls will wear your straw hats, and you _will not_ conveniently lose them. I do not _care_ if they itch. Ishi, Leela, if I hear you chased cucco again you will have _no cake_ and _no stories_ for a _year._ ”

The girls cheer, rising from the table to caper through the house in wild mirth.

“Hn,” says Link, and applies himself to his dinner again.

Hiraeth tucks the note away in his jacket, deciding he will stay long enough for dessert after all, and call on Julien after. His cousin keeps court hours anyway, and shouldn’t even be ordering dinner until well after twilight.

His stepmother swears. “Yes, preen and congratulate yourselves on encouraging all their worst habits you  _ selfish _ boys. In but  _ two years _ the twins will be of age to marry, and they will have no suitors of any worth if they present themselves to the world more headstrong than beautiful, with rustic manners and indifferent accomplishments to boot.”

Hiraeth pretends to be interested in his radish salad.

“With enough money, every man becomes liberal-minded,” says Link with a shrug. “When they meet a youth they like, I will adjust their dowries as needed.”

“Don’t be an idiot, husband. Do you  _ want _ them pursued by  _ more _ slavering treasure hunters? Will you drain our little fortune to bribe a couple bankrupt dukes to carry our girls away to their remote provincial estates where no one will ever see them?”

Link makes a rude noise. “When it's time, there will be rupee enough for all of them and still keep you in style, dear wife.”

“For  _ five _ girls? Without borrowing? How can you be so naive? Even if we had so much, the kind of man who marries a girl for money is not a man we want our girls in the power of.”

Link twirls his fork in his fingers. “Then what’s a dowry  _ for? _ ”

Hiraeth coughs and reaches for his glass, pretending he does not hear his stepmother’s blistering oaths as she shoves her chair back and storms out of the room. When he looks up again, he is surprised to see his father is still holding his empty fork and staring after her in open confusion. 

Cora and Ralo catch his attention silently, and Hiraeth gestures to give them explicit permission to retreat. It is strange having servants, but the couple lived in and took care of the little house long before Link bought it, and they seem content enough in their work most of the time.  _ Anyone _ would be uncomfortable in the room when his parents argue, but they are discreet, and Hiraeth is grateful for that. 

“Baba. The twins have always been lazy about schoolwork, and practicing their instruments, but they’re not stupid. Anyone with sense  _ must _ acknowledge them ten times more interesting and accomplished than any vapid city miss,” says Hiraeth softly, folding his napkin in precise thirds. “But momma is right about the money.”

Link turns to him, still baffled. “If they love someone poor, why shouldn’t I help them be happy?”

“Because poor men with titles and expensive habits often pretend to love rich ladies only long enough to marry them,” says Hiraeth. “Women will do the same for rank and title and fortune.”

“But that’s wicked,” says his father, artless and innocent, for all he is a veteran of the bloodiest years of the civil war in over a century. As ruthless as the desert raiders have become this year, Hiraeth understands now why there are so  _ few _ veterans, and why the western provinces and the Zora both argue against  _ any _ treaty with anybody, and why no Gerudo tribe sends delegates to the Crown Princess’ winter peace summits.

“The world is a wicked place, baba.”

Link frowns, setting down his fork. “So - to keep them safe I shouldn’t give them any money of their own?”

“Then no one will speak to them at all, and they will be forced to take up a profession whether they wish to or not,” says Hiraeth, wondering how his father could manage all his life ignorant of such simple things.

“Your mother didn’t have any dowry or profession,” says Link with a frown. “I have always been faithful to her.”

Hiraeth shrugs, pushing back from the table and pretending indifference he can’t convince himself to feel. “Do you love her though? Just because you didn’t need her  _ money _ doesn’t make your motives any less mercenary than anyone else’s.”

Link frowns harder. “Don’t be stupid. I love all of you. I won’t be drawn into another one of your riddles for making me look stupid.”

“That’s  _ not _ what I meant,” sighs Hiraeth. 

“Then maybe you should say what you mean instead of showing off how damn clever you are all the time. You can’t expect people to have any fucking idea what is or isn’t the truth of your heart if you don’t say it in plain words,” says Link, but he sounds more tired than stern. He scrubs a hand over his face and slouches in his chair. 

Hiraeth takes a deep breath, smothering his temper until he can manage to speak with objective calm. “Likewise, baba.”

Link meets his eye with the strangest expression, like he’d just uttered the worst oath imaginable, turned blue, and spilled his guts all over the dinner table.

Hiraeth bites his tongue to keep the questions in, and pushes to his feet. 

“I am not good at words,” says Link, his voice rough and thin. “But no matter what else happens, you must  _ never _ doubt that your mother and I love you very much.”

Hiraeth sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose, dismayed by the telltale twinge of another headache coming on. “I know. It’s fine. I wasn’t talking about me.”

“It is  _ not _ fine,” says Link, still staring up at him with that strange expression. Almost like the words cut his tongue as he shapes them. “Listen, Jojo. I love you. Ok? More than I have any idea how to tell. Please promise me you will try to believe me this time.”

Hiraeth feels somehow dizzy and strange, and when his father uses his secret baby name, it sends an unfamiliar chill down his spine. Usually he likes this secret they share, but something in his voice makes the world seem to tip sideways, and he can barely remember how to breathe.

Link sighs, and digs the heel of his scarred right hand against his eye like he too has a headache - or doesn’t want to be caught in a moment of sentiment. “Go on then. Give my regards to the Fullers, and to Malon. Buy her some sweets or something for me. And carrots for the horses.”

Hiraeth bows, because he cannot speak.

He hears the snap of the cabinet locks behind him as he gains the door, and decides he too craves the soothing burn of distilled spirits. Julien prefers wine, but his cousin carries a whole chest of various fruity Labrynnan spirits when he travels. If they can convince Max to dine out, they can entertain themselves liberally and he would still never notice.

Hiraeth regrets his decision when his sisters decide the best way to make sure he is awake in time to collect the horses and brake carriages and be at the ranch by afternoon is by sneaking into his room and dumping an entire bucket of water over his head while screaming some nonsense about thunderstorms and a hole in the roof. He roars and chases them into the hall - where his father catches him with a second bucket and a cat-in-cream grin.

His anger bleeds away with the blessedly cool water, and his stepmother finds all of them collapsed in the sodden hallway, giggling like mad things. 

Julien looks at him funny when they meet at the post-house, but keeps his conversation to compliments for the girls and little nothings about the best way to arrange all the trunks and who should watch Leela and who get the challenge of Ishi. The drive across town proves refreshingly quiet, and they manage to collect the three others without Ferret really even waking up. Ishi and Saso both dote on him, and it is decided they and Leela will ride with Ben and the larger trunks, while Mika and the twins ride with Hiraeth and Julien and the light-but-bulky chests and boxes. 

There is a moment of excitement when they need to turn the carriages about in the tiny square at the end of the crooked little street, but they manage with the help of a friendly tea-seller in the same square. Julien buys glasses of cream tea for everyone with his usual enthusiasm, though when they reach the city gate he confesses that he would have bought tea anyway on account of his headache. 

Hiraeth laughs, leaning back as much as the driving bench allows. “Worth it. Mostly. The spikefruit cordial was  _ vile _ though wasn’t it?”

Julien pretends to retch over the side, but the girls are absorbed in their own conversation and completely ignoring them. “I cannot imagine even Max drinking that on purpose. He must buy it to serve to people he hates.”

“Hn,” says Hiraeth, toying with the reins. Not that the mismatched old geldings care. They plod on, following their stablemates across Little River Bridge, which is neither little, a bridge, or over a river, but does deliver them to the open fields and sunshine outside the stifling walls, which in the end is all that matters. “A brilliant investment, really. Are you  _ quite _ sure I shouldn’t like Maximillian best?”

Julien punches his arm by way of answer.

Hiraeth laughs. “You’re far too easy. Someone’s going to use that against you someday, my friend.”

Juloen snorts with an unusually sour twist to his lips. “What, that I care when you make a joke of me? Or that I won’t take your example and pretend to the whole world that no one and nothing means anything to me above my stupid work?”

Hiraeth raises a brow, but Julien just folds his arms, slouches on the bench beside him, and stares fixedly at the road ahead. “Don’t be like that. It was just a joke.”

“To you,” concedes Julien.

Hiraeth hears his father’s rebuke battling with all the other rules inside his head that he present himself as strong and rational and calm and correct, always. “What is this really about?”

Julien sets his jaw, and for once has nothing to say at all.

Hiraeth sighs. “Jules. Contrary to popular rumor, my mother’s people can’t read minds. You were fine last night, and fine this morning. What happened?”

“Your sisters didn’t know I was coming along for this folly,” says Julien eventually, refusing to look at him. 

“Ok? So you’re mad I didn’t tell them it was your idea they have riding lessons?”

“I don’t care about that. I’m offended you  _ still _ haven’t even told your folks I exist,” grumbles Julien. 

“Oh,” says Hiraeth, embarrassed to realize he never even considered whether he should. “I wasn’t  _ trying _ to keep you secret. It just - never came up.”

Julien snorts in derision. 

Hiraeth sighs, and is glad his sisters are too distracted to notice him struggling to assemble words. “I didn’t  _ tell _ them I planned to bring the Fullers either. When I said I was going out, Mom assumed I meant to visit Ben, and the girls leapt in with  _ their _ speculation - she forbid the excursion, my father encouraged it, and they fought. There really wasn’t a good moment, and it’s not like I need their permission to keep whatever company pleases me.”

Julien grinds his jaw. “Yeah. Two years of  _ not a good moment _ to mention the shameful outlander you spend idle hours with after work.”

“Not true. I took Da to that greasy tavern you showed me by River Gate last summer, and  _ yes _ I told him you’re the one recommended it.”

Julien casts him a sidelong glance, still unhappy. “Mentioned in passing to a drunk who immediately forgot.”

Hiraeth makes a rude noise, pretending he needs to pay attention to the horses. “You don’t know my father. He never forgets  _ anything _ .”

“Maybe I’d like to.”

Hiraeth frowns at him in confusion.

Julien sighs, gesturing in frustration. “In  _ civilized _ countries, unless there is some deeply hazardous political divide or an insurmountable matter of public embarrassment unlikely to be resolved until one or more of the offended parties expires, one introduces one’s friends to one’s family.”

“Oh,” says Hiraeth. He decides it is well that breakfast awaits them some hours down the road yet, as his stomach has decided to knot itself around his spine and threaten to shame him. “As a friend I think it only fair to warn you that Mom is mortally offended by, oh, pretty much everything these days. I don’t think even you could charm your way into her favor. She’s determined the twins make a good match, and anything that casts even a flicker of shadow between her and this absurd purpose? Death Mountain roars.”

Julien snorts, but unbends a little. “That bad is it?”

“Worse,” cry the twins in unison, startling them both.

Hiraeth swears, and immediately regrets it, for he is then obliged to bribe Mika with promises of contraband wooden swords from the upcoming harvest festival for her not to repeat such language in her parents’ or brothers’ hearing - or at least not to tell them where she learned it.

“You have  _ no idea  _ how annoying she is. Like, I  _ want _ to learn dancing, but a single missed step or crooked sash or smudge of kohl on my glove and  _ ugh _ ,” whines Kyra.

“Whatever shall we do with you? You will run off every handsome man in town with the reek of mud on your petticoats,” cries Myra with a dramatic flair, her expression a perfect copy of her mother’s. 

“When you are finally invited to dance will you oblige a man of  _ quality _ to soil his hands with the ash and soot on your glove? Do you want them all to think you a lowborn chambermaid?” Kyra scolds.

Julien tsks and shakes his head in sympathy.

“Jewels do not adorn  _ snarled hair _ daughter mine, or have you broken every comb in the house?” 

“You will cinch your stays another inch or you will learn moderation at the table, your choice. Bad enough you cannot set a straight stitch to save your life, but you must ruin your figure on cake like your brother before you are even engaged?”

Hiraeth winces. “Anyone whose company can be chased away by such stupid things is no one you should ever waste the energy on in the first place.”

The girls congratulate themselves on their alliance, and Mika giggles. She is still too young for those concerns, but it is not far off - and for her it will be even more important, since the Fullers  _ do not _ have independent means.

“However,” says Hiraeth after a moment, raising a hand to stop their groans and objections. “Kohl  _ is _ beastly hard to launder out of silk and linen, and if you ruin white kidskin, well. Do you want another pair of gray gloves? Because that’s what you’ve got now. It isn’t fair to Cora that the laundry demand a dozen hours a week just to keep you halfway presentable, so maybe trade your muslin and satin for something sturdy when you want to run wild in the parks. I  _ do _ hope you packed proper riding gear this time, or I shall wrap you up in  _ my _ spare clothes and Julien here will make you ride into Castletown market looking like a sack of turnips, see if I don’t.”

“I will do no such-”

“Hibi that’s not  _ fair-! _ ”

“You can’t do that! Elenor and Mariann spend half the day in the market! We’ll be a laughingstock!”

“Hibi  _ please-! _” 

Hiraeth lets their pleading roll right past him, and he pretends not to hear Julien either, until they all run out of energy - or strategies. “When you do not agree with someone’s _stated_ reason for a thing, spare a little thought for other possible virtues or purpose before you dismiss it out of hand. Not everyone is as forthright as you, and in Mom’s case, _perhaps_ your obsession with frivolous romantic literature over reading of any actual merit has persuaded her this is the only reason that has a _chance_ of tempering your selfish habits. But of course you may do as you please and let everyone else pay the bill.”

The girls say nothing.

Hiraeth does not turn about to see if they look stubborn or chagrined - either way they need to stew on it for a few hours, if they are to have any appreciation whatever for the surprises waiting for them at the ranch.

Julien cannot wait so long - though he at least has the delicacy to lower his voice and use Lurelin, which none of the girls speak. “You are too harsh with them. They are only children.”

“They are fifteen and more than old enough to take responsibility for their decisions,” counters Hiraeth equitably in the same tongue. “I love them - but they are headstrong to a fault. If they cannot learn to temper their whims with reason soon, they will harvest only disappointment and regret.”

Julien frowns at him. “Is that it then? Your foreign acquaintance is a folly to be reasoned away so you need not be embarrassed by connections to the enemy when the war inevitably drags our countries apart again?”

“I give not one single fuck for the opinion of fools,” says Hiraeth. “Believe me or not, I never had any friend in my home village, and few in this miserable city aside from Anna - whom you  _ know _ I  _ cannot _ introduce to my mother without a doctor on hand to revive her from a dead faint of fright - and the Fullers, who would introduce themselves to a damned moblin if they chanced to meet. I have my family and my work, and the good fortune to have tripped over you. How should I have known you cared for formalities and the awkwardness of attempting conversation with my ill-tempered stepmother and taciturn father?”

Julien studies him intently, searching his face for something he evidently does not find, for he sighs, and scrubs his face, and adjusts the drape of his coral-and-cream summer coat, and turns the conversation to idle gossip - in plain Hylian. 

Hiraeth chews on the puzzle for the rest of the drive, but it is impossible to remain introspective once they are through the gate and Ellon and Talon and Malon are all cheering and the cucco are crowding about the carriages with less than no respect for wheels and hooves and trunks being unloaded. 

Once everything is settled into the guesthouse, the chest of imported yarns carted off to the weaving shed, and the post horses turned loose in the near pasture, Ellon herds everyone to the table - even Julien, who swears he is still stuffed on a breakfast Hiraeth knows he didn’t actually eat. The girls trade news from town for updates on all their favorite horses, and when they have all eaten enough of brunch to persuade Ellon that none of them will starve, Hiraeth asks the ranch hands to bring in the two fat red chests he’d sent ahead days ago. Julien looks as charmingly baffled as his sisters, especially when he throws the lids back to reveal dozens of cloth-wrapped parcels redolent of memoryleaf and lavender. 

Ishi is - predictably - the first to seize a flat parcel and tear it open. All the girls hum in awe when she holds up a tightly braided, wide-brimmed straw hat dyed logwood black, with sateen lining to match, and a fat satin ribbon of rich onion gold. She squeals in delight to find her name embroidered inside the flat crown.

Hiraeth folds his hands behind his back and stands aside with Julien and Ben to watch the rest of the girls descend on the chests with ravenous excitement. Ferret hugs Ben’s leg and pouts, until Hiraeth catches his eye and winks. He is a bright child, and familiar with the unrelenting energy of the others. 

When they have all run off to try on their fashionable new riding habits - and scandalously masculine field-dress for riding in rougher country - Ferret lets go his elder brother and peers into the chests himself to find a riotously colorful long coat and tasseled little riding boots waiting for him, with hollow wood-and-leather heels that click when he walks.

Ben shakes his head, and complains that he spends too much. Hiraeth teases him for his baseless concern, promising that he will return  _ his _ gift if it pleases him better to be the odd one out. 

Ben frowns at the now-empty chests. “Wait. You didn’t.”

Hiraeth says nothing, biting the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes copper because otherwise he will laugh.

Julien looks baffled.

Ben groans. “ _ Please _ tell me you didn’t do something stupid.”

Hiraeth makes a rude noise. “I am never less than perfectly correct. Ask anyone. Go on then, you won’t get your share of the healthful country air standing about indoors all day.”

Ben looks suspicious. 

Hiraeth shoos him on, and says nothing. 

Ben swears when Ingo brings out the sprightly buckskin mare for him. “For the week.  _ Tell me _ she’s only mine for a week.”

Hiraeth shrugs. “If you have no particular interest in riding again, I suppose.”

Ben makes a strange squeaking sound, and gestures helplessly. “I can’t possibly. However am I supposed to feed her? We haven’t anywhere to  _ keep _ her - people like us don’t  _ have- _ ”

“Nonsense. It is all taken care of. Boots will live most of the time out here as always, and Lon-Lon has first choice of her foals, but now she can never be sold away from you. Riding is good exercise, and you have in her a little extra excuse for your family to take holidays outside of town more often. Anyways it wasn’t  _ just _ my doing,” says Hiraeth with a shrug. “Father sends his regards, and wishes you a happy birthday if you will forgive that your present is a few months late.”

“Goddess Bright, you’re serious,” breathes Ben, turning about to stare at his new horse. Ingo thrusts the lead into his hands impatiently and huffs, stomping back to the stable to bring out the rest of the string. Ben lays a reverent hand on Boots’ flank, and gets his ear slobbered on in equine appreciation.

Hiraeth leaves them to their happiness and crosses the stableyard to wait by the corral and mounting blocks for the girls to be ready. 

Julien follows, but doesn’t say anything until Ingo tethers the last horse and mutters his way off to the byre. He counts all eight twice, and peers at the post horses in the pasture as if he fears he missed one. “Where’s yours? Aren’t you coming with us?”

“Don’t be stupid. I don’t ride,” says Hiraeth, petting the sweet old sorrel mare charged with carrying Leela.

“I’ve spent over half my life on a ship. I’m not good at it either. That’s no reason to deny yourself the pleasure, just because you’re not a master of the sport,” says Julien softly. 

“No, I mean  _ I don’t ride. _ I will be glad of the quiet anyways. I have a whole pile of books I’ve been putting off,” says Hiraeth, offering ear scritches to the placid dapple-coated miniature gelding waiting patiently for Ferret.

“But why not? You love horses, and they  _ all _ adore you. The big black mare over there may not be elegant, but she looks more than strong enough for you, and sweet-tempered.”

Hiraeth sighs. “It’s not about my ridiculous size, or not only that. I can’t do it, and I’ve made my peace with that. You  _ know _ me. You can tie something to my hands and I’ll  _ still _ manage to drop it.”

Julien frowns, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Except your sisters.”

“What?”

“No offense my friend, but you are  _ so _ clumsy it’s like you were cursed twice over by a cross-eyed witch.”

“None taken where truth is spoken,” quotes Hiraeth with a thin laugh. “I appreciate your concern, but I  _ did _ try once, back home. It did not go well for me, the horse, or the fence.”

“And yet,” says Julien, tipping his head to one side in that charming way he has. “You’ve never  _ once _ dropped your sisters or the Fuller children.”

Hiraeth frowns down at him. “Would you rather I did, asshole?”

“Not at all, no, Goddess Forfend that I ever wish ill on any of you,” says Julien, his tone grave. “It just doesn’t make sense. The things you can’t do. If it’s not your mother, it’s your father, or it’s this - strange condition. We come out here for even four hours and it’s almost like you’ve shed a storm-logged cloak and you’re starting to find your sea legs. But it never lasts, does it?”

Hiraeth laughs. “Don’t be absurd. Anyone would move easier in the countryside after weeks of being tied up in a stuffy office squinting at sloppy records.”

“Still,” says Julien with a sigh, fidgeting with some little shred of stick he found in his much abused pockets. “I wish all of your days could be like this, with you smiling in the sunlight, your hands steady and strong and-”

Hiraeth waits for him to finish, brow raised, curious what’s gotten under his skin, but he just trails off and stops, like he’s run out of wind. 

A distant shriek warns them the girls and Ferret are - if not  _ quite _ ready to set out on their adventure, soon will be. 

Julien starts nearly half a minute after, like their noise had to move through honey to reach his rounded ears. 

Hiraeth rests a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs it off and laughs, moving toward his borrowed horse - a steady old dapple gray with black socks named Pepper. Hiraeth follows, rather unnecessarily holding Pepper’s lead while he mounts up. “You ok?”

Julien laughs, arranging his coat more comfortably. “Don’t mind me. Degenerate outlander remember? Enjoy your books.”

“Hn. If you insist,” says Hiraeth lightly, absolutely certain he’s hiding something, and just as certain he hasn’t the first idea what to do about it.


	23. Mission

On the morning of the last of the equinox assemblies, Sheik finally tracks down his quarry. A rebound, first edition, imported bilingual printing of Taryn’s Tales proves to be lurking in the deepest level of the private royal archives under the creatively ironic listing Telado Tragedies, with nothing on its spine to announce it but the inventory number.

He skims just enough of the text to be certain all eight illustrated stories are present, marks the all-important cucco story with a delicate scrap of plain rice paper, and hides it inside a hollowed-out casebound tome purporting to record the lives of various popular saints of the early chaos era. No one ever reads such a thing on purpose except an _extremely_ bored priest… or Zelda. The shy, pious, bookish maiden princess.

Zelda cannot keep track of which noble idiot has babbled which piece of inane flattery all evening. She excuses herself from as much of the dancing and conversation as she can get away with, and mumbles her way through the festive recitations with some little discreet prompting from Vah Rauru. Impa scowls more than usual, but her father notices nothing at all. _As usual._

She waits impatiently for Impa to settle into her meditations for the night, counting the minutes until she can retrieve her notes and her own _real_ copy of the boring history book to exchange with the false one waiting for Sheik in the archive.

He utters the most undignified noises when in fact Taryn’s Tales proves to contain an alternate version of the cucco and pumpkin fable as promised in the storyteller’s shorthand note. He knows the girls have searched for the bookshop without success all summer, expanding their search for the mysterious Twingaro Street to every city in Hyrule, and have begun to despair of finding it at all.

Sheik reads the story three times, and even lays it side-by-side with the closest copy he can find of the storyteller’s father’s book. Nothing in the royal archive has only six stories and minimal commentary, but he suspects _their_ book is one orphaned part of a serial printing, possibly a later edition of Natural Fables, a Hylian collection of anthropomorphic stories popular during the reign of Harkinian IV and his son Roald II.

The latter is nothing but horrid, moralistic cautionary tales, and Sheik feels sorry for any long-ago children who must surely have suffered nightmares for being made to hear them.

The Holodrun originals though! _Those_ are delightfully nuanced and poetic, even the bittersweet ones. Of which the cucco story is, admittedly, the saddest. The pumpkin is unfortunately _only_ a pumpkin, and shatters with the winter frost, exactly as in the Hylian version. Yet even so, there is a strange happiness in the poetry and the charming illuminations, for where the Hylian version ends abruptly with the death of the foolish cucco, in the original, the gods reward the faithful cucco with many descendants and elevate her spirit to become a guardian of her kind.

Sheik is on the point of carrying his treasure to the storyteller’s house when the shrieking of songbirds heralds the dawn. He swears at the merciless march of time, and locks everything away in Zelda’s writing desk.

She cannot bear to sit still during morning prayer, and she cannot find her appetite all day. She very nearly snaps at the Minister of the Household when he interrupts a council meeting to seek her preference on - _of all things-!_ \- which batch of new velvet should be made into cushions for the throne room, and which into robes. She loses her place during vesper devotions, and pretends a headache at dinner.

Impa catches her digging through her desk for frivolous children’s stories when she is supposed to be convalescing.

Against her will, Zelda waits another day.

And another.

On the third evening, Impa is called to attend the King for some private meeting with the Lord Marshal and the Minister of Justice. Zelda hesitates, because she feels _more_ ill when she thinks of what they _must_ be discussing. In the end though, she decides there is no point pacing her chambers and fretting over it, since there nothing _she_ can do about it until morning.

Sheik nearly flies over the castle walls and across a thousand city rooftops, racing toward the artisan’s quarter. His every breath is a prayer to Nayru that the family is still out on holiday, and he can take time to find a place to leave the book where it is certain to be found without frightening the poor children.

A few lights burn in the servants’ windows, and a few overlooking the quaint little attempt of a garden behind the house. Sheik waits beside each chimney-pipes, listening. It is _technically_ autumn now, but the weather hasn’t surrendered to that fact yet. It is always so hard to tell whether anyone is home in this humid heat, when no one lights any fire they don’t have to.

Sheik hangs upside down over the girls’ dark bedroom window to pick the lock. He guides the clear glazed window open barely an inch, heartened to discover the housekeeper oils the hinges properly. He tosses a tiny, common, unremarkable clay bead into the room and waits to see if anyone stirs.

Silence.

He eases the window open further, tossing two more beads.

Nothing at all.

His hands tremble with excitement and maybe a little anxiousness as he folds the windows in, latching them to the casement just in case the night wind should pick up his pace. He slips into the room, silent, cautious, barely even daring to breathe. Watered-milk moonlight follows him into the little bedroom, where two half-canopy beds with cluttered night-tables stand opposite two hulking clothespress, and one long desk with two absurdly tall chairs.

_Then again, if these little girls have a Gerudo mother, then they may well take after her in stature._

Sheik finds one small bookcase near the hall door, but it is overflowing with school books and serial novels and loose fashion plates. He decides it is unlikely they will find the book of fables there, at least not anytime soon. He studies what little he can see of the messy desk, trying to determine what they are most likely to touch soonest.

He can barely make out anything of their sloppy, childishly curlicue’d handwriting, so in the end he decides not to hide the book at all, but lay it square in the middle of the mess. He straightens the bow on the blue ribbon he’d secured the fragile casebinding with, and makes sure the long green satin bookmark drapes fetchingly - _and conspicuously-!_ \- from between the deckled pages.

Sheik turns to leave with some little reluctance, for there is a warmth in these strangers’ room that owes nothing whatever to the season. He wonders what it would be like to have so many sibs, and he is sorry for a moment that it is impossible that he should ever meet this happy family at court and have a chance at making friends of them.

_Not that we could ever be close. The insurmountable gulf of rank inevitably kindles avarice and simpering servility._

Nonetheless, it is a great success to have completed a tricky mission like this without Impa’s help. _Without even her knowledge of it!_ He slinks through the shadows back to the window, debating how to spend the rest of the evening, and if he should tell Impa now that it is done. _No,_ he decides as he gathers himself to leap over the probably-squeaky window seat and into the casement, _this triumph belongs to Sheik alone-!_

“You are a very bad thief,” says one of the girls from nowhere at all.

Sheik stumbles and drops into a tight frog-crouch, needleblades at ready. His stomach churns - he cannot see them - he cannot place the voice - he cannot bear the thought of having to hurt a child to escape.

The hidden girl groans. “Don’t you know _anything?_ Thieves are supposed to take stuff, not _leave_ stuff.”

Shiek swallows hard, and pitches his voice low as possible, given his throat is tight with anxious uncertainty. “It is a gift.”

“I don’t believe you,” says the girl, and he can hear her fold her little arms - _she must be near the window - but how? Where?_

“It is for the storyteller,” says Sheik.

The moonlight shimmers - and the girl is standing in the window. On the casement. Where she would surely have been knocked clear to the ground and killed if he’d completed his leap. “You’re a funny looking Sheikah. Are you a spy? Is there poison in the paper?”

“What? No!” Sheik pushes to his feet, cold with shock and horror. His fingers tremble as he returns the needleblades to their hidden sheath.

“I don’t believe you,” snaps the girl, planting her fists on her hips. She seems far too young to be one of the twins whose room he thought this was, but he is not sure which of the middle girls she is. “Are you a good Sheikah or a bad Sheikah?”

Sheik glances toward the hall door, but there is no more light showing under it than before. For now. He stammers, distracted by the perilous circumstance he’s blundered his way into. The only exits from this room lay through the girl or the door, and no smoke charm will help him with either. “All Sheikah are good.”

The girl makes an explicitly rude noise. Sheik decides she is probably Ishi, and the most dangerous of the five. “Stupid bad Sheikah _and_ stupid bad listener too. If you knew anything about anything and listened to the actual stories he actually tells, you’d know that.”

“I - am on a mission from the princess,” stammers Sheik, heart racing.

“Oh yeah? Where’s your letter?” Ishi demands, hopping down to the window-seat with a resounding thump.

Sheik staggers back, desperately trying to calculate whether or not there is room to vault over her head and still catch himself on something, _anything_ that might break his fall. “What?”

“ _Aha!_ ” Ishi cries, stomping her foot. Sheik does not need to turn about to know the lights in the hall will be brighter. “Liar _liar_ house on _fire_ -! If she’d _really_ sent you, she’d have given you a letter. Go _away_ bad Sheikah-spy, nobody wants you.”

Sheik retreats another half-step as a distant voice calls out in muffled query. Ishi makes the mistake of jumping down from the window-seat to roar and threaten and stomp her foot at him. Moonlight flashes on some small sliver of steel in her hand.

Sheik dodges left, burning with shame to be cornered by a common child, and sprints for the window. He pivots in the leap, catching the iron drainpipe easily - but Ishi has stormed after him and is hanging over the casement to hurl obscenities at him. Golden lamplight streams around her furious figure - he has half a heartbeat to notice the gray mask pushed up into her long red hair - he sees the book flying from her fist.

The green ribbon catches the wind, pulling free of the pages as it sails over the cramped, tasteless shrubberies of the terraced false garden dividing the house from the street.

A man looks up too late.

Ishi shrieks.

The unlucky stranger stumbles and falls to his knees on the rough cobbles, clutching his head.

The book hits stone, snapping the blue ribbon and cracking the spine. A gust of wind throws the pages into a flurry.

Sheik slides down the drainpipe and leaps into the road to snatch up the wounded book before the fragile antique paper can tear any more than it already has.

“ _You motherfucking snake-!_ ” growls the stranger, staggering to his feet.

Sheik hesitates, clutching the priceless book to his chest. A faint sour-sharp whiff of strong spirits filters through his heavy muffler. A broad shaft of amber light pours over them as the front door of the little house opens. He glances at the man beside him, bracing for violence, expecting to see some lurching drunkard.

“ _Get away from my baba,_ ” shrieks Ishi from the house. “Leave! Go away! Get out of here and take your stupid poison book with you!”

Sheik’s stomach sinks through the very earth as he looks up into the scarred face of the stranger who brought his princess a magic bottle to save the Holodrun boy. He stammers an apology.

“Oh no you don’t you _fucking_ coward,” snarls the man, reaching for a sword he isn’t carrying. With his left hand.

“Please - I can explain,” pleads Sheik, holding up his empty hand, cautiously rising to his feet and backing away. Men accustomed to carrying swords _never_ travel without some other blade. “I didn’t throw the book - I’m sorry - I was only-”

“Only _what_ you _snake,_ you _scorpion,_ you _selfish_ child? What are you doing here? Get out,” snaps the man, advancing on him with frighteningly steady gait for someone who smells like the inside of a liquor cabinet.

“Please,” begs Sheik, glancing at the little house in despair. Ishi is struggling in the arms of three women - _or maybe her sisters and mother_ \- shouting incoherent abuses and threats at him. “I was only on an errand for the Princess.”

“The _hell_ you are,” snarls the man, raising his empty hand in warning. “We want nothing to do with your intrigues. Take your filthy propaganda and go.”

“But - its not - it was a gift, for the storyteller of this house,” stammers Sheik. He feels completely stupid for not recognizing his voice before, and utterly lost to face such vehement prejudice. _And from him! Who risked his life trespassing in the royal shrine to save Hyrule from yet another war!_

The last time a Sheikah tribesman was charged with treason was _decades_ ago. Everyone knows they serve the royal family. Everyone knows they are loyal to death and beyond. Everyone knows they set the highest standard for integrity and excellence.

“ _Storyteller?_ How _dare_ you,” snarls the man, his hands curled in fists. He is no taller than Sheik, but his very presence radiates a raw power that makes him seem enormous. His cold blue eyes remind him of the ferocious albino wolf in the King’s menagerie. He has no doubt whatever this man is a warrior. “Get away from my family you disingenuous twit.”

“It has a happy ending,” blurts Sheik.

“Fuck you,” snaps the man.

Sheik holds up the book even as he gives ground. “The censors changed it. It was supposed to be a just-so story. I swear by the gods, it is true. The pumpkin seeds become golden cucco eggs and-”

“Fuck your meddling and fuck your excuses and fuck your self-righteous horseshit. You’re twenty _fucking_ years too late for _happy endings,_ ” he snarls, knocking the book from his hand, his left fist pulled back to strike.

Sheik sees death in the eyes of this furious stranger. The world narrows to a string of probabilities strung through the air like a net of broken jewels. He dodges under the man’s reach and hurls a deku nut, stunning him just long enough to activate a smoke charm. He flees through the night, his ears ringing with the blasphemous oaths of the man and the shrieking fury of his daughter.

By the time he drags himself up and over the inner curtain wall, his eyes ache from straining to see his path through his tears. He huddles in the shadows of a fountain in the princess’ private garden to wash his face and sit with the disaster.

The man who brought Zelda a miracle spell in the eleventh hour is just a _common_ _artisan_ with six children and a violent hatred of Sheikah.

_It doesn’t make sense._

_And now the priceless first edition of_ _Taryn’s Tales_ _is lost, maybe forever. The storyteller - the son of this angry stranger - will never know the true story of the cucco who hatched from a pumpkin._

Sheik climbs the princess’ tower well after midnight. He sheds enough of his gear to pull a woolen nightdress over the remainder and collapses into bed.

Zelda pulls the blankets over her head when Impa opens the door. _The last thing in the world I could want is a lecture._

Impa picks up one of the leather needleblade sheaths from the vanity. “You’re getting sloppy.”

“I don’t care,” snarls Zelda from under the blankets. She hugs her pillow tighter and wishes she’d never heard that dark voice rising upon spicy woodsmoke. _Everyone knows you can’t miss something you never knew, and you can’t lose something you never had._

Impa collects discarded clothing and weapons from the floor, returning each piece to the hidden closets in the sculpted woodwork wrapping around the bedroom. “It only needs one mistake for a rumor to spread, for a mask to be burned. Leaving your weapons in plain view may as well be an invitation for someone to see-”

“Then see that they don’t,” snaps Zelda. “Are you not my bodyguard? Then stand guard and _leave me alone._ ”

Silence.

A click of cabinet latch closing.

Zelda does not hear Impa leave, but she knows when she is alone. She can feel the subtle difference in the air, in the magic around her that she cannot wield. It is the way of the Sheikah to move unseen, unheard, to cut the very shadows to make their cloaks and to never, _ever_ fail.


	24. Cipher

Autumn slowly bleeds vigor from the world in the year Hiraeth is eighteen, but the weather is so heavy and hot and miserably humid that wan yellow-green cannot manage to transform into rich red-oranges and glorious golds. The Ministry refuses to authorize funds for additional lamps and candles to allow the clerks to do more of their work either earlier or later in the day when the offices are even slightly less miserable. 

Hiraeth buys a fine water-globe lamp for himself, and ruinously expensive distilled white naphtha from the disputed western highlands to light it with. Not that he dares fill or adjust it himself, but even after the servants go home for the night, the twins come to drag him from his work just often enough that he can always steal another few hours in the evenings.

Not that it makes much difference. 

Four and a half months into the classified, randomized state audit for which he left a respectable, stable position, and still he cannot assemble proof of  _ anything _ sufficient to justify the expense of the project. His headaches are worse than ever, and increase in frequency until they visit him almost daily. His stepmother frets over him and makes him drink terrible, theoretically healthful teas. He humors her, mostly because she makes vast trays of solstice cakes and nut-cakes and honey-glass to make up for the horrid taste and to tempt his weak appetite. 

He does  _ not _ tell her that he eats sparingly at home now because he is  _ so _ ravenous when he leaves the office that he’s often already dined out or indulged himself in some common market food that she would never approve of. She would only be more unhappy, and it is nice to be the one eating his desserts for once. He tells himself the inevitable effect on his tailor’s bills is nothing of consequence - he can afford it, and his sharply foreign features and inconvenient proportions were never going to measure well against anyone’s idea of beauty anyway.

His father takes him aside every Lightsday after the trip to LonLon to fidget awkwardly and ask how his work is, and if he would prefer a different profession. Every time, Hiraeth asks why he doesn’t want him working for the Ministry. 

Link only shakes his head, and fidgets more, and reminds him he is not a pauper. He asks Hiraeth if he is happy in his work.

Hiraeth answers the same every time: that it is important work.   
  
Link sighs, and rubs at the scar on his face like it pains him, and says that is no answer at all.   
  
Hiraeth tells him every time that if it is not enough to find purpose in necessary work, that he  _ has _ no answer. He wishes he could confess that Vah Dano  _ didn’t _ assign him to represent their firm in a Ministry commission. He wonders if his father would worry more or less if he broke his vow and told him what the Minister asked him to  _ do _ for the audit, that with every day he becomes less an accounting clerk and more of a cipher breaker. He tells himself it was right and necessary to keep the Sheikah-made pince-nez a secret, that his father would not understand that dividing light into distinct colors and enhancing one’s ability to see them is not magic at all, but science.

He is certain the stone-like mask must operate on the same principles in reverse, though he has no time to put any serious study into the why or how.

His sisters bring him society rumors about corruption in the Ministry. He dismisses it at first - but the very next day one of the senior auditors with almost thirty years of service is arrested for accepting a bribe. From a Labrynan merchant. His mother has many  _ more _ things to say about outlanders after that, extending her usual dislike and suspicion of Zora to include humans who willfully live near any substantial body of water. Her opinion of actual sailors and fisherfolk is even worse.  

A week later two junior auditors are quietly dismissed without pay for entering restricted archives. 

One of the archive stewards is given a demerit and transferred to a garrison in the Penitent Wastes when a whole block of annual harvest reports goes missing. It is found three days later interfiled with the provincial census from the same year, a careless mistake to be sure, but one all too easily made. The clerks petition to have the transfer withdrawn, as the steward was friendly with everybody, but the poor man has already been ruined, shunned by his family and his debts called in before he’s even been assigned to a wagon in the supply caravan. 

One of the Ministry servants brings Julien’s card at least every third day. He weighs the temptation a little longer every time. In the end he tucks them between the pages of one of his blank ledgers and returns to his work.  

When they meet in the market by chance, Hiraeth pretends the servants never delivered nor told him anything. Julien immediately invites him to share a drink at the nearest public house. He lies and says he is expected for dinner at home, and feels rotten when Julien’s face betrays his disappointment. He suggests they meet another night, but Julien only nods, makes some vaguely polite noises in agreement, and excuses himself to wrap up some unspecified business with a merchant several booths away. 

Hiraeth sends a note to Ben Fuller with a note for the Minister of Finance wrapped inside, compounding the lies with interest. He tells himself it is necessary. He doesn’t  _ ask _ for a day’s release from duty so much as advise the man he’s no intention to report tomorrow, and if inquiries are made of his family he won’t be reporting on the following days, either.

The Minister replies by express courier at the fourth hour of midnight with a single word.  _ Scoundrel. _

Hiraeth decides this more or less means permission. He accordingly leaves at the regular hour - and after a few false turns in case one of his sisters is spying on him, he crosses town to call on Julien. The servant tries to turn him away, whispering aside that his friend is likely to be abed for some hours still, as he and his cousin made merry until nearly dawn. Hiraeth insists that his card be carried up anyway.

The man himself appears on the stair, rumpled and half-dressed, while Hiraeth is still trying to persuade the servant. Julien stammers and fails to assemble a greeting in any language. 

Hiraeth grins at him. “Setting a new fashion for informality, my friend?”

“Uh,” says Julien, combing a hand through his unruly hair. “Your thundering at poor Eric here woke me up, that’s all.”

“Hn. The wine fools your ears, as we were engaging the most  _ civil _ of wagers regarding your state of consciousness,” rumbles Hiraeth. “Which, by appearing so conveniently, you have decided in my favor. I trust you can find your coat and boots with greater success than you find your tongue?”

“Uh,” says Julien again, descending another step and giving every impression of having been kicked by a mule. He scrubs his face. “Goddess Bright, I need tea. Eric, if you aren’t busy-”

“If you can summon but five minutes of patience, the Thistle Pot has a new blend of roasted black with goldenleaf and spicebark, and will even serve proper breakfast for another hour,” counters Hiraeth, hooking his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. Eric glances between them and politely withdraws to the edge of the room.

“Oh. Well, I’m sure they’ll still have it tomorrow,” says Julien, tugging his open waistcoat straight, as if that makes up for half his shirt buttons being undone and the tails haphazardly tucked. “My thanks for the recommendation, but I’m not fit for society today.”

“Happily neither I nor the trout qualify as society, so you may feel free to be as coarse as you please,” says Hiraeth with a grin. “Your current state of dress  _ might _ scandalize half the city on our way to to river, but I do think  _ society _ could  _ use _ a little shock. You’ll want the boots for your own comfort though.”

Julien goggles at him. “What? Since when do you fish?”

Hiraeth checks his gold Terminan pocketwatch. “Given a little rounding tolerance, ten minutes ago.”

“Uh,” says Julien, frowning in confusion.

“Given I am  _ naturally _ a master of the sport, I  _ would _ advise you fortify yourself with that tea if you’ve any intention of keeping up.”

“What about your work?”

Hiraeth shrugs. “What about it?”

Julien blinks at him. He glances at Eric, who is faithfully pretending to be as oblivious as the furniture. He shakes his head, pressing a hand to his brow like it will stop his head from sloshing. “Uh.”

“Boots,” suggests Hiraeth. 

“Right,” says Julien, pivoting on the stair. “Five minutes. Make yourself comfortable I guess?”

Hiraeth raises a brow at the fashionably delicate furnishings of the rented parlor and makes a rude noise. 

Julien swears, and hurries up the stair. 

Hiraeth slips Eric a red rupee for his trouble and paces the room idly. He does not sit down.

Julien takes rather more than five minutes to assemble himself, but returns wearing sturdy boots and buckskins and a wool coat in undulating blue and bottle green twill, with only a modest onion-gold wave pattern embroidered about the edges. 

He doesn’t talk much over breakfast, and Hiraeth leaves him to his thoughts. They rent rod and tackle from a shop near the River Gate, and Hiraeth pretends not to notice Julien’s doubtful expressions. 

Once outside the walls and ambling along the verge of the road, Julien heaves a great sigh, plants the butt of his fishing rod in the dirt and refuses to take another step until Hiraeth explains himself.

He gestures to the rod and basket of provisions and tackle.

Julien shakes his head. “Trout season is nearly over, and they won’t be feeding until dusk. Have you ever even  _ seen _ a fish that wasn’t on your plate already dressed in butter?”

“First time for everything,” says Hiraeth lightly. “Come on. We have some  _ highly _ critical napping, I mean fishing, to do before sunset.”

Julien doesn’t budge. “In this dank, inhospitable weather.”

Hiraeth shrugs. “The breeze will freshen it more the further we get from the city.”

“What is this really about?”

Hiraeth sighs, gazing wistfully at a distant corpse of friendly-looking trees near a bend in the little tributary that snakes around the northwest side of the city. “I’m going to go cross-eyed trying to meet the Ministry’s timeframe with the case they’ve got me on, and if I don’t get out of that rank bullpen of an office for a few hours I’m going to take after Ferret and start biting people when they annoy me.”

“Ah,” says Julien, setting his jaw and nodding to himself. 

“Max can take his own damn notes for a day,” says Hiraeth, beckoning him onward.

Julien sighs, his shoulders sagging, but he falls into step. “It’s not that.”

“I know,” says Hiraeth, toying with his fishing rod and hoping the pole doesn’t splinter or the hook slip free of its catch. “But I’m told it’s polite to suggest plausible excuses to preserve their pride when one’s friends encounter difficulty.” 

Julien snorts in wry amusement. “I thought we were being uncouth today.”

“True,” concedes Hiraeth, clearing his throat and summoning his best Wicked Knight Malladux growl. “Fuck work, and fuck your cousin, you’re going with me to drink wine by the river and make a sorry attempt at fishing and that’s the fucking end of it.”

“Wind and wave - I take it back you foul-minded rascal,” laughs Julien. “I’d rather we  _ didn’t _ fuck Max, if it’s all the same to you, thanks.”

“Oh good. I wasn’t looking forward to explaining to my employer why I need ransomed from the royal dungeons or a foreign prison or both,” says Hiraeth, wiping his brow in mock relief.

Julien snickers at him, but his mirth has a nervous edge to it. Hiraeth suddenly wonders if he’s being strange and edgy on account of the salacious details of the Labrynnan merchant’s private habits coming to public attention in the unfolding bribery scandal.

“Jokes aside, you know the twins are fiends for society gossip, but it’s only because they are amused by folly. None of us give it any credence. Except mother when she’s already in a foul mood and hating the whole world anyway,” says Hiraeth softly.

Julien winces, and fidgets with his fishing pole. “About that.”

Hiraeth slows his stride, raising a brow. “Jules. I am quite possibly the  _ last _ person in the world who would ever judge you by the sins of your countrymen.”

“That’s not - quite what I meant,” says Julien, his face taking on a strangely warm cast. “Hylian law and custom is - different than ours. What is scandalous to one-”

“I’m  _ pretty _ sure bribery and fraud are illegal everywhere,” says Hiraeth.

“Well, yes. Probably. But I meant - the  _ other _ rumor. He  _ is _ actually a - um. Anyways, you should know there is some truth to it.”

Hiraeth watches him poke his fishing rod at the dirt and avoid eye contact, trying to remember what Myra said about it. “Ok? And? Why do  _ we _ care if he’s faithful to his wife or not and with whom? Do you have some connection to that man?”

“Not exactly,” stammers Julien, and his lips move like he  _ would _ say something else, but he can’t manage to push it past his teeth.

Hiraeth lays a hand on his shoulder and stops walking - but Julien shrugs him off and keeps going. Hiraeth waits, but he doesn’t turn back. “What are you trying to tell me Jules?” 

Julien shrugs and shakes his head, waving off the entire conversation. “Nothing I guess. Which wine did you say you brought? Can we open it now or must it wait for the river?”

“Reasoning like that is what garnered you that headache in the first place,” teases Hiraeth, but he draws a dark oblong bottle from his coat pocket, which he confiscated from Ishi’s room and suspects of having come from their father’s stash. “I don’t know what this one’s called, but it’s fruity and dark and probably an antique based on the date on the tax seal.”

That gets his attention. Julien waits for him to catch up, nothing in his looks but curiosity. Hiraeth swiftly revises his opinion of Julien’s ability to conceal his feelings, and wonders for the first time how much of his friend’s frivolous manner is a mask. He watches Julien taste the wine, measuring his artless reaction against every memory he can summon, looking for inconsistencies.

“I wouldn’t swear to it, but this stuff has  _ got _ to be rare. I’ve never met a brandy-wine this rich. How much did you  _ pay _ ? Blessed Goddess - two hundred and fifty years old - no, it  _ must _ be a fake. A  _ good _ fake. Complex, balanced. A competent imitation,” says Julien, shaking his head.

Hiraeth shrugs, gesturing for him to keep the bottle. “Thought you might like that. Indulge as much as you please - I’ve two more at home.”

Julien stares up at him, eyes wide. “Hiraeth Anjotyr Vohenia. If you paid a king’s ransom for  _ mephita _ brandy for a  _ fishing trip _ I - I am going to punch you.”

“Wouldn’t know,” says Hiraeth with a shrug. “It didn’t have a label when I found it, but a little taste brought you to mind, so I brought one along.”

“Blessed Saints of Light, you can’t just throw  _ money _ at  _ everything _ ,” splutters Julien. 

Hiraeth sighs. This is not the reaction he expected. “I don’t know what this  _ mephita _ stuff is or why it’s such a big deal.  _ You _ know things about booze,  _ I _ don’t. I stole it from my father because I figure  _ he _ knows what he’s buying and I wanted to make you happy, ok? Is that a crime now?”

Julien groans and swears and looks at the bottle in his hand. He takes a cautious sip, and swears again. He corks it carefully and tucks it away in his jacket. “I’ll give Max a taste of it before I say for sure, but you’d be safer to put the other bottles back before he notices. Let’s get to the river already so I can rest my bloody eyes. Tell me about the case on the way. It’ll help you think through the problem.”

Hiraeth shrugs, trudging after him and trying to make sense of his quicksilver moods. “I can’t.  _ That’s _ the better half of the problem.”

Julien groans, and slaps his arm. “Idiot. I don’t need or care about  _ names _ , just the  _ situation _ . The rough circumstances, the kinds of numbers we’re looking at, the paths you’ve followed already.”

“I can’t. I must keep my oath closely now more than ever,” says Hiraeth, wishing it wasn’t so. Julien has a habit of cutting through tangled logic and throwing fresh perspective on matters, and he knew from the moment he accepted the commission that he would struggle with that very temptation. 

“My friend, you are a  _ terrible _ spy,” says Julien in a tone of long-suffering.

“I’m just a clerk,” says Hiraeth. “A dim one at that, given my results this summer. What would a midlist ship’s officer know about spying anyways?”

Julien rolls his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. My cousin isn’t exactly here for his health.”

“Well, yeah. He ran out ladies to flirt with at home so he flattered his way into a diplomatic post so he could flirt in a foreign language too.”

Julien makes a rude noise, kicking at a stray pebble. “That’s just a fringe benefit.”

Hiraeth decides he will pay closer attention to the arrogant peacock going forward. To everything, really. “Anyways, I really  _ can’t _ tell you this time. Especially since I’m starting to think they’ve put me in a wheat field and asked me to find them fish.”

Julien nods, and they walk in silence for a while. At length he takes out the bottle for another sparing sip. “Stop looking for a river then. Requisition a shovel and start digging. The richest harvests feed on blood and bone.”


	25. Research

Autumn roses usually fill the princess’ private gardens with heady, spicy floral musk, balanced by the citrusy perfume of red and gold safflinas and the clean, astringent fragrance of memoryleaf in bloom. This year, the gardeners curse and pray and coddle  _ all _ the gardens, battling webweavers and caterpillars and mildew in the soil. They prune everything harshly and dig out half the courtyards down to stone, replacing the dirt with new compost and kiln-baked soil from the King’s Fields and dark humus harvested from the King’s Forest.

Zelda paces the wilting labyrinths, wishing she could dream of a cleansing rain instead of storms. She cannot rest without dreaming of glowing eyes in the darkness and a wind that scours the world of life, of lightning that rips the earth asunder, of blood and plague. The shadows crowd out other prophecies, and it is many weeks since she had anything of significance to report. After all, no one needs a sign from the gods that a foal will be born with a white star on her brow, or that the apple harvest will be poor.

And  _ no one _ needs to know she has nightmares about the furious artisan stalking her with a bloody blade in his hand and curses on his tongue. 

She stops telling Impa about the dreams. Until the gods show her something definite, a clear direction or landmark or word, there is nothing she can say which has not already been said a hundred thousand times already.

Every night after most of the court retires, Sheik haunts the libraries and record halls in the castle and council and courts. He doesn’t dare enter the artisan’s quarter again, much less approach the house of the storyteller. He  _ tries _ to forget the dark voice, he  _ tries _ to cast off the foolish illusion of being in any way connected to the five spirited girls, he  _ tries _ to overcome his regret over the failed gift, he  _ tries _ to tell himself it is better for everyone to cease indulging the frivolous pleasure of eavesdropping on them. 

But he can’t stop thinking about the cipher that is master architect Link Vohenia of Nowhere In Particular. 

The tax records say he owns the townhouse and the land under it, but Sheik can’t find any record of its purchase. Not last year, not ten years ago, not twenty,  _ never _ . As far as he can find, that house has belonged to a Vohenia from the day that street was laid.

That sort of inheritance was expected among the peers, and dead common in the gentry and for country farmers, but highly unusual for an artisan’s family. Worse, Sheik can’t even find the name Vohenia  _ anywhere _ else until winter solstice eighteen years ago, when he married Jolene Elisan of Saliko Parish in the southern Lake Districts. 

Not in the census, not in tax or harvest records, not even in military lists. The parish reports from that winter note  _ her _ age and family, and even speculate that she may have been with child when she stood before the gods to take her husband’s name. For Link, the priest wrote simply, “unknown.”

They vanish from the Saliko records after that single entry, appearing four years later with infant daughters in a census of Rostlyn Valley, in the softer end of the Eldin mountains south and east of Ordon at the very edge of the kingdom. 

Sheik almost throws the books in the moat in fury over the disaster when he realizes Myra and Kyra are his own age. Somehow it just makes everything a hundred times worse.

But he can’t resist the lure of the puzzle for long. 

The Rostlyn census is the first place Sheik finds the man’s profession listed. It takes nearly two weeks of hunting to find any record of what he might have built or for what company or patron.

Zelda feels incredibly stupid when she stumbles by accident upon his name in her morning correspondence, buried in a flowery letter from Duke Elapidan inviting her to grace a performance of  _ Last Eagle of Ikana _ at the Royal Opera, for which they engaged the celebrated architect of the place to design the sets. 

Zelda hates opera. 

She accepts the invitation immediately. 

Impa grumbles about her sudden and inexplicable obsession with architecture, and argues against expeditions outside the capital to admire bridges and causeways and temples and fountains and country estates. It is too dangerous, she says, the roads crawling with brigands and beasts.

Sheik devours every folio of building drafts he can find. He is entranced by the elegant proportions, the clever engineering, the sharp and confident renderings beside cramped, backslanted notations riddled with misspellings. 

At the opera, Zelda listens closely to the gossip, hungry for the smallest crumb about the architect and his family. There isn’t much - except one fascinating comment that he is known to sing at the worksites and is generally regarded as too talented in the arts to have ever been a good soldier. A discreet inquiry brings her the rumor that he is suspected a deserter, that he is generally thought to have escaped to the Terminan Republic until everyone who might have pursued him had perished in one battle or another.

She watches the crowd all night for anyone with red-blonde hair and sharp thiefborn features. She is disappointed the family does not attend, but after the performance she  _ personally _ thanks the singers for their devotion to their art, asking about their work and pretending to be charmed by their costumes and staging. A few are petrified by her attention, and one flees in abject terror when one of her guards glares at him. The others turn into fawning, simpering fools, begging apologies and fishing for compliments like spoiled children. She humors them anyway, accepting a tour backstage in hopes one of them will mention Vohenia.

They say he is taciturn and eccentric, given to melancholy and a touchy appetite - which she suspects of being a gentle way of saying he drinks heavily - but all praise his skill and unfailing generosity. She asks if he ever attends their performances, and they fall all over themselves to tell her about his five charming daughters and their little coterie of friends and schoolmates and their faithful attendance at  _ every _ dress rehearsal. 

Zelda goes to bed with a mountainous headache that night. 

Sheik paces the archives, wondering why almost no one bothers to mention the son. Why there is no trace of any other Vohenia anywhere in the country, or even the allied provinces. He admits the possibility he may in fact  _ be _ Terminan, but in  _ that _ case there should be record of his entry into Hyrule, of which there is none. 

_ And how could his family have owned that townhouse so long and no one mention a foreigner on that street? _ In any case, his accent is wrong for Termina. Everything Sheik overheard was fluid and musical like the speech of the desert bandit women, but with a strange sort of lilt that reminds him of a hymn somehow. Especially when he is upset. 

Almost as if his mother tongue was Old High Hylian, which no one has used outside a temple in thousands of years. 

Sheik trembles to consider the implication. Legend promises that the gods will always send a hero in Hyrule’s time of need. Prophecy speaks of a pure-hearted youth bound by the gods and spirits of Hyrule to defend the eternal Light. 

He touches the brittle spines of antique campaign records, thinking of the millions of lives already lost over the many centuries devoured by the civil wars. It is hard to have faith in the prophecy when the hero is tardy. 

“Twenty years too late for happy endings,” murmurs Sheik. “But he barely even looks thirty.”

The books give no answer. 

Sheik has already scoured the records of every unit in every province during the Thieves’ Revolt nineteen years ago, and the Flower War before that, and the River Uprising before that. Every record of a knight or soldier even  _ close _ to Vohenia’s profile proved to be either definitively deceased of wounds in no way matching his scars, or inconveniently living out a life elsewhere that could not possibly allow him a dual identity.

“Looks like a highborn, writes like a peasant, talks like an acolyte. Moves like a fighter, scarred like a fighter,” mutters Sheik, pulling a tome from the reign of King Ambrose Dedrick III. It is impossible Vohenia could be that old - but it might explain his baffling, unfounded hatred of Sheikah if he is descended from some poor soul slain by the Knight-Mage traitor. 

A quick glance yields no record of the name, but Sheik tucks the book under his tabard in hopes of finding a description that fits. 

He wanders the stacks, studying the tidy shelves for inspiration. “Deserts the army, but comes  _ back _ to his country married to a halfblood thief. Hates us, but half his commissions  _ come _ from us. Already a master of his craft eighteen years ago, but nobody ever heard of him before he shows up to sweep the Harvest Faire prizes with a working model of the lift-bridge and a fistful of drawings. Who  _ are _ you?”

“Hsst! What was that?” 

Sheik drops into a frog crouch at once. He holds his breath, his ears aching with the challenge of tracking the stranger’s voice.

“Leggo, stupid. Scared me half out of my skin, jumping at shadows. Didn’t you read the log? No one here but us and buckethead at this hour.”

Sheik eases into deeper shadow.

“No, I  _ really _ heard something this time, I swear to Nayru.”

Sheik holds his breath. 

“Just put the damn book in the basket and come  _ on _ . Sarge wants these on his desk by dawn and I don’t know about you but I want a pint and some shuteye before then.”

“But what if-”

“Listen. It’s all a bunch of make-work for show anyway.  _ No one _ is interested in dusty old campaign maps but sexless bookworms and fireside generals. Isn’t that right buckethead?”

Sheik makes a face in the general direction of the strangers, and considers tossing some deku nuts at them - for spite, and to escape. He doesn’t want to damage the books using a smoke charm though, and decides against it. 

One of them sighs, with a subtle clink of metal. “That’s  _ Lieutenant _ Buckethead to you, I don’t  _ care _ if you’ve five years on me. And dust or no dust, thieves  _ have _ been breaking into all manner of places this season. Marshal’s orders no one goes into archive nor storehouse at  _ any _ hour without an escort and signing the log. Suck it up.”

“See? I’m  _ not _ imagining it.  _ I heard something.  _ They haven’t caught ‘em yet, no one knows where they’ll be next. All  _ kinds _ of accidents happening in this town lately.”

“You spend too much time in the henyard. Ah, here’s the one for the north canyon. Three more. You see one for the Mother and Daughter Stones on the bottom shelf anywhere?”

“It could be the thief  _ in here with us now _ , some long-toothed Gerudo witch come to slit our throats and drink our blood.”

One of the other two groans.

“Don’t look for trouble under every stone, or you just might get it. My cousin served in the west, and I tell you that’s downright  _ merciful _ for one of them.”

Footsteps.

Sheik edges along the shelf, greatly regretting that he didn’t leave the moment he chose a book. 

“Okay, that’s six books. Out with you before I decide to report your insubordinate asses. And as it’s  _ your _ names on the log, don’t forget that you’re the ones who will answer to the Captain for any damages.”

“Oh get over yourself,  _ sir _ . We know how this place runs, and if you keep swanning about starched to hell and back and quoting regulations you’re gonna end up on the business end of an outlander’s spear one day. And I  _ won’t _ send flowers to your mother when it happens.”

Footsteps. 

Hinges. 

Bang and click of door and latch.

Sheik breathes in the silence, waiting six long beats before he stands. He decides he is done with this garrison for the night, and starts toward the other side of the archive where he left a clerestory window open. 

“Shouldn’t you be in the tower?”

Sheik freezes. The lieutenant.  _ How did he get so close without making noise? Steel armor is noisy!  _

The lieutenant sighs. “Just answer the question. I know you’ve been here for two hours, and I know Vah Impa’s going to roar if I have to report her protege is one of the thieves.”

_ Oh.  _ “Special mission. Finding weak points in the guard.”

“Turn. Hands where I can see them. Point to where you’re carrying your orders and  _ I _ will check them.”

Sheik grinds his teeth, pivoting carefully, two needleblades hidden between his fingers. “Touch me and die. Sheikah apprentice garb is woven of poisongrass and shadow magic.”

“I know,” says the mustachioed lieutenant in royal livery. He holds up his hand, showing the black silk gloves under his gauntlets. “My first assignment was the Princess’ tower. Where you should be. Doing your job. Failing to protect a Zelda carries the same sentence as if you held the knife, Sheik.”

Sheik nods, heart sinking. The man looks familiar, but he can’t dredge up a name. And he  _ didn’t _ think to write a sanction-letter in case he got caught. Because Sheikah  _ don’t _ get caught. “The Princess dreamed of a library aflame. I am to find which, so the fire can be prevented. The moon was full in her dream.”

The lieutenant draws a hissing breath, glancing up as if he would gaze at the moon through the vaulting roof. “Two days isn’t much time. Even Vah Impa couldn’t check every archive in the city. Did she see anything else?”

Sheik sighs, and glances toward the door as if he is struggling to keep a secret, when in truth he is desperately trying to think of a symbol that would explain his presence in the garrison records, but  _ also _ carve an opportunity to escape. Immediately.

“Sheik. I know your people are blood-bound. I  _ know _ you’re young and afire to prove yourself. But the best and most faithful bodyguard alive would stitch himself to the Princess’ shadow and prepare his soul for the day he needs to stand between her and an assassin's blade. Even when that means you have to disobey her.”

Sheik hangs his head, noting the bright blue-and-red sword knots hanging from his belt. Expensive colors for a young officer - unless it was a gift -  _ or inheritance? _ “Old books. Flame through high windows. A sword with blue and red ribbons. A black lantern with four panes and eight spikes and a ring on the bottom.”

The lieutenant grunts. “I’ve seen lanterns like that. Check the precinct house files wing by the old tower on the west castletown walls, where the streets jog every half mile. Grew up there.”

Sheik bows.

“Hurry,” suggests the lieutenant. “Most houses have tile roofs there, but few can afford bricks. Wattlework burns like wax if there’s any gap in the daub and lime wash, and  _ all _ the framing’s old timber.”

Sheik salutes and races for the window, praying for Din to show him a safe place to set a small leaf fire in the alley near that poor little archive where someone is sure to put it out in time.


	26. Headache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smol content warning for mention of off-screen Badguys(tm) doing Badguy Things, and implied/referenced homophobia.

When the sun smiles on silenceblooms and wild trillium at high summer, the blossoms glow with every kind of indigo and violet. It’s rare and dizzying and beautiful, and Hiraeth remembers laying in the fallow fields above the village, surrounded by glowing wildflowers. He used to daydream that the fae lands in the old legends of Zelda the Great might have glowed like that, if they were real.

Hiraeth grinds his teeth at the obstinate ledger, and pries the Sheikah lenses off his aching nose. The jeweled wire frames hurt after even an hour, and his eyes hurt from squinting at madly pulsing blues and purples for three days straight. Every single recordbook from Hebron is drenched in traces of so-called shadow magic, but he can’t find  _ anything _ hiding under it but scribing errors. 

_ No one _ wastes hundreds of rupee on that alchemical reagent to neaten a lazy scribe’s wretched spelling. 

Ministry servants make a circuit of the office an hour after sunset, dousing the lamps one by one. Most of the other clerks and auditors finish their notes and strike up conversations with their neighbors. Within half an hour the room buzzes with idle talk. Hiraeth tucks the pince-nez in the breast pocket of his waistcoat and sketches an idle pattern in the margins of his notes. It is impossible to think amid such noise, but he cannot fault the others for celebrating the end of another long, miserable week.

The floor supervisor paces between the rows of desks, checking to be sure all work papers are properly secured. He pauses beside Hiraeth’s desk, asking in his sour whine if he intends to keep keese hours today as well. 

It is a stupid question, as the man is well aware Hiraeth left the office for three hours at midday. As usual. 

Not that he was idle - he’d gone to the alchemist to collect his now-daily headache remedy and slink home for a nap to let it do its work. The stubborn physicker refuses to sell him more than one dose at a time, and threatens to tell his father what he’s about if he presses the matter. 

To his shame,  _ everyone _ knows about his headaches by now. The Minister wrote a special authorization for him: since he chose to cover the expense of the necessary lighting for himself, Hiraeth would be permitted to divide his day’s work in pieces as needed, so long as the sum of his hours remained the same. The supervisors and functionaries objected, but a little reminder that the alternative would be the loss of his efforts for the Ministry silenced  _ that _ readily enough.

A couple other clerks petitioned for similar indulgence, investing in lamps and good beeswax candles of their own. Once again the middle ranked administrators complained, going so far as to stir public sentiment against the selfish, grasping, lazy habits of the young. Hiraeth made sure the twins shared with the biggest gossip in Castletown the story of the grieving widower in his own office, who used  _ his _ newly-freed midday hours to walk his young children home from lessons and help with their schoolwork until their aunt was free from  _ her _ work to mind them.

A week later public opinion turned about-face, and society ladies made a new fashion of hosting ‘cake parties’ for ‘poor’ state servants, each trying to outdo the others giving away baskets of fruits and vegetables and pastries and preserves.

Hiraeth suspects the twins embellished more than a little, but he doesn’t feel the least bit sorry. He has more than enough familiarity with the financial habits of the rich now to be confident they deserve to shoulder the expense of feeding the humble and the opportunistic alike.

Eventually, quiet returns to the dim office, and Hiraeth can neglect his work no longer. Thieving takkuri in fancy dress have already preyed on the people too long and need their wings clipped.

Ten baronets have been charged and confessed to understating their rents received, surrendering fully half the unreported value to the crown, in rupee and in kind. Two provincial viscounts at opposite ends of the kingdom have confessed to overstating harvest losses and selling the resulting surplus to a traveling goron broker for uncut - and therefore, unmarked - precious gems. Three barons are under under house arrest while the royal guard searches their holdings for hidden caches of high-grade steel and crates of heavy leather and twice-baked bread, or at least evidence that such a cache might have been recently emptied, or better yet, exchanged for chests of silver rupee etched with the royal seal.

The Earl of Necluda is blissfully unaware that his welcome into the King’s inner circle and invitation to accompany the King on a boar hunt next month is not, in fact, an honor. Royal Knights have already been dispatched to each of the six country houses where he lures naive, impoverished girls into his service and gets them with child to keep them in his power. 

His expenses and reputation among the peers as a generous host  _ suggests _ he and his circle of wealthy friends abuse his ill-gotten power regularly. But there is not  _ enough _ of a trail for proof against any of the other probable libertines.

Hiraeth does not like that the earl’s perfidy is being kept quiet, but the Minister assures him neither the Countess and her children nor the women deceived by the soon-to-be-deceased Earl would thank him for making their misfortune a matter of market gossip. 

Hiraeth dreads the inevitable Upper Court proceedings. He will be expected to attend the tedious nonsense, possibly even  _ speak _ before the judges and priests and everyone. He will lose the comfortable cloak of relative obscurity as merely one clerk among many, howsoever exotic his looks, and he is sure his clumsiness will make him a laughingstock by the end of the first week. He also worries that public knowledge of his headaches and scrutiny of the embarrassingly early beginnings of the proverbial nearsightedness common to his profession will cast doubt on the truth of his findings.

Julien says it won’t matter, but Julien is forever the optimist. 

The thought brings the man. Hiraeth welcomes the interruption. He’s not quite sure how Julien - or maybe his cousin - managed to flatter their way into a letter of royal permission for him to enter Ministry offices, provided he retains an escort at all times. Which apparently includes Hiraeth.

“I’m sure you don’t notice in this cave, but outside it’s but three hours to Lightsday and you are  _ literally _ the last one haunting the place but for the poor souls on door duty,” says Julien by way of greeting. 

“Then you come in good hour -  _ if _ you have snacks.”

Julien makes a rude noise, leaning against a neighboring desk. “As I know your tricks for keeping your teeth in your books, I did not. If you want cake and wine, you’re going to have to actually set down your pen and come with me this time.”

Hiraeth groans, rubbing his bleary eyes. “I can’t. I  _ have _ to solve this Jules. The rats will flee if they know I’m on their trail, which they absolutely will as soon as the Upper Courts announce their decision on which cases they will hear.”

“And you can’t just use their flight to flush them into a trap?”

Hiraeth shakes his head.

Julien sighs, chewing his lip. “Ben says he hasn’t seen you in a week, and Ishi threatened to cut my ear off if I didn’t make sure you’re at her recital, alert and ‘properly attired’ whatever that means, on Zephersday. When’s the last time you slept?”

“This afternoon. I’m fine. I’m just - frustrated. That’s all.”

“I mean  _ really _ slept. Not just medicated yourself into a stupor for two hours. It’s no wonder you can’t untangle this case, burning yourself down to the dregs day after day. Neglect and overwork blunts the most keen wit.”

Hiraeth props his elbows on the desk, massaging his temples. “I know Jules.  _ I know _ . But what can I do? I can  _ feel _ the sands running through my fingers every time I turn a blasted page and find  _ nothing _ . It’s an absolute disgrace, and no quantity of honeycake can soothe _ that _ . Not that I should have any at all.”

“Stop it. The very last thing you need to be adding to your vices this year is starving yourself to suit your mother’s twisted version of masculine ideals,” snaps Julien. “Just because your father is nothing but bones and cables doesn’t mean  _ you _ should be.”

Hiraeth snorts. “Thanks for your support, but I’m serious. I  _ literally _ can’t button my damn coat, and if I’m not careful I’m going to rip another waistcoat before the new are off the tailor’s needles. Four ells apiece, Jules. You complain that  _ I _ spend too much on my friends and wear miser’s weeds myself, well. I just gave the man two months of wages in hopes I’ll have any clothes to wear this winter at all, and nevermind  _ nice _ ones. If this doesn’t stop I’m going to need to buy the sails off your ship to keep from exposing myself to the world.”

“Goddess have mercy,  _ stop _ I said. Look at me,” says Julien, gripping his shoulder, his expression strangely intense. “By the design of the heavens you are  _ seven-and-a-half feet tall _ , my friend. My own coats are two ells if they’re to have any skirt worth mentioning. Do you hear me?”

“Yes. Coats. The ones with  _ sleeves _ ,” snorts Hiraeth. “Take offense to the truth as much as you like, but the facts remain.”

Julien curses, tipping his eyes skyward as if he would argue with the gods themselves. “I swear by the stars, sometimes I want to carve it in a plank and wallop you with it.”

Hiraeth sighs, leaning back in his chair and offering his somewhat inkstained hand. “Peace my friend. I wasn’t trying to start a row. The case is just a thorn in my skin, and I-”

“Come on then. Leave that cipher for another day. Let’s get a bite to eat and play a few rounds of bombachu hazards,” cuts in Julien, grasping his hand fiercely.

“I can’t,” says Hiraeth, avoiding his eye.

“You must. You need rest or you are going to do yourself serious harm.”

Hiraeth winces, and fidgets with the stained pen-cloth. “My parents - believe my regular shift includes Lightsdays. If I don’t get up on time and return to the office at the usual hour tomorrow, mother will think I’m ill.”

“Which you are,” begins Julien with a frown.

“There will be inquiries,” says Hiraeth.

“So don’t go home at all. To hell with her nagging and to hell with work. Come back to our place and  _ relax _ for once in your damn life. I’ll send Eric with a note.”

“I  _ really _ can’t,” says Hiraeth, hating the sour taste of the confession. “You were right about my parents. Or at least my mother. After the senior auditor confessed to laying down with that merchant, the investigation uncovered a dozen other men guilty of the same and she - I’m sorry Jules. She’s just about decided all Labrynans are degenerates and if she found out about you  _ now _ ? It would be war in our house.”

Julien drops his hand and jerks back, his face blank. “Ok. Right. Well. You  _ didn’t _ stay with me. Your boss put you in his guest room and you’re working on a special project. Write a note and we’ll send one of the guards with it.”

“We’ll be seen leaving together,” says Hiraeth, flipping the ledger shut and wondering if he can bribe the alchemist out of bed long enough to sell him another dose. “You don’t understand.”

“No. I don’t.” Julien watches him lock his papers away, expression unreadable. Hiraeth misses the days when he was open and artless and cheerful. Or at least when he still had the illusion of it to hold to.

“I know you mean well Jules, but you  _ can’t _ understand. I’m not just thiefborn - I’m plague-born too. The red cough started in my mother when I was still a seedling too small to be known of. By the time the fever began and my father realized what was happening, it was too late. The healers told him the cure would kill her child, but if she didn’t start the medicine at once, we’d both die. So he waited in vigil a week, praying for a miracle, and when nothing happened, he gave her the dose. It made the birth pains start. But the blood wouldn’t stop.”

“Oh,” says Julien.

“You said it’s like I’m cursed, well. Insofar as you can say a curse is misfortune, it’s true.” Hiraeth pushes his chair back. “I shouldn’t have survived it, and I almost didn’t. I was sickly as a child, and I’ve been clumsy and weak all my life. I didn’t want to tell you - hell, my father never told  _ me. _ I found out shortly after we moved here a few years back, after father and I argued about - I don’t remember. Something stupid. Jolene took me aside after and begged me to try to understand his overprotective habits. He hasn’t said a word about the scandal, but there’s  _ no way _ he hasn’t heard about it, and if he decides you’re a threat-?”

“Shut up and follow me,” snaps Julien. “Max owes me a favor.”

Hiraeth cocks a brow.

“Up, or so help me I’ll  _ make _ you get up. Max plays cards with the Minister every Woolsday, and they missed this week because of a damn opera,” says Julien, cold and flat.

Hiraeth pushes to his feet and starts to follow, more out of curiosity than anything, but he trips over nothing, stumbles, falls, and cracks one of the other desks in the process. Julien swears at him, helping him up with incredible strength all out of proportion to his slender build. He refuses to release his hand, dragging him down the halls and up several stairs, through private corridors for high-ranking officials. The guards don't even blink.

Julien knocks at a whitewashed door that looks exactly like every other door on the gallery, tapping a strangely familiar pattern.

The latch clicks.

He opens the door, pulling Hiraeth inside with complete indifference to the unfortunate height of the lintel. “Sorry to intrude on your leisure, sir. Max, I need your carriage.”

Hiraeth rubs at his abused forehead, blinking at the surreal tableaux of the Hylian Minister of Finance sitting at a tiny card table with  _ the _ most flamboyant member of the Labrynnan envoy.

“Vohenia,” says Max politely, nodding in greeting.

The Minister sits back in his chair, collapsing the cards in his hand. “You look like twice-trampled shit.”

“Sir,” begins Hiraeth, bowing awkwardly and cursing the vertigo to the nether hells. He doesn’t see a servant.  _ How did the door open? They’re both at the table and I didn’t hear footsteps. _ “My apologies - I didn’t know this was your office. I - this wasn’t my idea.”

“Shut up and sit down before you fall on your nose and make a mess of my carpet,” says the Minister, pocketing the cards and picking up his glass of dark wine.

Hiraeth gapes at them.

Julien points to an overstuffed sofa.

Hiraeth shakes his head.

Julien pushes him off balance.

Max snorts. “ _ This _ is your pet bloodhound Cedric?”

“We prefer the term  _ auditor _ ,” says the Minister, savoring a taste of his wine as he stands. “If you don’t sit down of your own volition I suspect your companion is going to take the choice from you shortly. One doesn’t provoke the Labrynnan navy unless one is prepared to  _ lose _ .”

Hiraeth glances between his employer and his friend and his friend’s cousin, lost. He cautiously lowers himself to the sofa, wincing when it groans and cries under him. “It’s really nothing, just a headache. Happens all the time.”

The Minister - Hiraeth cannot adjust to knowing his given name - jabs a finger in his direction, stalking to the sideboard to pour a cloudy, greenish liquor into a clean glass. “If that’s a little headache I’m the long lost bastard prince. Drink this.”

Hiraeth accepts the glass because he can’t think of an excuse not to, lifting it to his lips automatically. He nearly gags at the acrid taste. He swears, scowling at the glass as the older men laugh at him.

Julien folds his arms and scowls. “Bottoms up.  _ Now. _ ” 

“Fuck you,” snaps Hiraeth. “ I mean-”

“Well, at least his tongue works,” Max sniggers.

Hiraeth’s cheeks burn with embarrassment, and he tries to find a place to set the glass aside. “My apologies sir, it - isn’t to my taste.”

The Minister laughs. “If it was, I’d recommend you committed to the madhouse. Listen to your gallant  _ lieutenant _ there and drain every last drop.”

Julien growls, provoking the older men to laugh all the harder. 

Hiraeth makes a face at the glass, and looks to Julien for help. He finds none. He closes his eyes and tips the glass back, trying to let as little of it touch his tongue as possible. He fights the urge to retch, wondering what perversity leads physickers to invent such vile potions. When he opens his eyes again, Max is beside him, holding out a glass of clean water. He drains that as well. It doesn’t help.

“Now, once your tongue stops trying to escape your head, tell me why you’re ruining yourself on this case.” Cedric-the-Minister pours another glass full of something amber and fizzy.

“Uh,” says Hiraeth, brilliantly.

Cedric casts him a disparaging glance. “What. Have. You found?”

“Nothing sir, the usual, I was merely running behind,” stammers Hiraeth. 

Cedric snorts, gesturing with the perilously full glass. “Don’t mind him. Max is an old friend of the Crown.” 

“What,” says Hiraeth. 

“ _ What, _ ” says Julien, eyes narrowed.

Maximilian d’Oro of Labrynna sighs, and struggles to tug free a heavy sapphire ring. He turns it in his broad fingers, twisting the setting around the band. He places it in his cousin’s palm. 

Julien swears, and hands the ring to Hiraeth. 

He hands Julien the empty water glass and squints at the ring. Where the stone usually rests, the bright platinum is stamped with the Hylian eagle over a faintly gold-washed triangle. Hiraeth pulls out the pince-nez, holding them briefly in place to be sure of the faint inscription encircling it. “Love is a gift of the Light?”

Max grunts, holding out his hand to reclaim the ring. “I was of some little use to the late queen, Light remember her.”

“Ooookay,” says Hiraeth, combing his fingers through his hair. “I am  _ dreaming _ . Passed out cold. Wake up  _ stupid _ before you drool on the ledger.”

“You’re not dreaming,” says Cedric, offering the amber-filled glass. “Don’t make that face. This one’s a pleasure to chase the physick.”

“Oh thank the bright little gods,” says Hiraeth, accepting the glass. Dream or not, his tongue still offends him immensely. “Uh. I mean-”

Cedric waves off his apology, pulling his chair over. “No, it’s entirely fair. Green chu extract is notorious, but there’s nothing more effective for ... this.”

Hiraeth licks the sweet nectar from his lips, trying to persuade his mind to function. “For what? This is a  _ headache _ sir. Maybe a little stronger to punish me for skipping lunch, but I swear to you it’s been happening all my life.”

“Of  _ that _ I have no doubt,” says Max, wriggling the sapphire ring back into the groove it’s carved around his calloused finger. “Where did you say your father served?”

“I - didn’t. We moved from Termina when I was-” stammers Hiraeth in confusion.

“No, you didn’t,” says Cedric in a tone that allows no argument whatever. He savors his own dark wine, crossing one knee over the other and looking rather like a satisfied housecat. “That your family has connections there is certain, but I assure you there is no record of your family name or anyone matching your father’s description and talents in the registries of  _ any  _ country in the known world before he rode into a nothing little town in the Lake Districts to marry your stepmother.” 

“What,” says Hiraeth, feeling like he is four years old again and he’s fallen down the stairs with the world spinning a merry jig around him.

Julien unbends from whatever private thoughts put steel in his spine, and wraps Hiraeth’s free hand in both of his own.

Cedric smiles, but his eyes do not. “I make a point of knowing who I’m paying. Now. What did you find?”

Hiraeth stares at him. Stares at his glass. Takes another drink of the blessed honey-like mystery liquor. Squints at Max. “There is  _ no way  _ you’re old enough-”

Max makes a rude noise, hooking his thumbs in his sash. “If I were a vain man I would appreciate the compliment. Suffice to say, I followed a wide road paved by every other young man with eyes in his head - and half the women. I came to this country as a hot-blooded mercenary of twenty-two and promptly fell hopelessly in love with the late queen. It is a matter of personal pride to have served beside the royal guard when she married Johannes, and for three seasons after. Likewise it is my eternal regret that I was called home just before the scorpion-” 

Cedric clears his throat sharply.

Max answers him with a sardonic smirk. “I serve my country whenever she needs me, but I will lay down my life before I allow anyone or anything to harm Zelda.”

“Not the King,” blurts Hiraeth before he can stop himself.

“ _ Johannes? _ Really?” Julien’s voice lilts in disbelief. 

Max meets his cousin’s eye, unyielding, for all his voice is smooth and cultured as ever. “I know what I said.”

Julien blinks. “Oh.”

Hiraeth stares at them all in baffled silence. He hopes the sweet amber stuff in his glass proves even stronger than the cordials Max keeps.

“Vohenia,” says Cedric at last.

Hiraeth drains the last of his glass and screws in his courage. “I meant what I said. I have gone over everything three times. I find  _ nothing. _ ”

“Sixteen titled little bandit rats isn’t nothing, my boy. You may not have the significance in hand yet, but given the way your nervous young gallant is scowling at me, you’re on the trail.”

Hiraeth shakes his head. “No, you don’t understand.  _ Hebron’s books hold nothing _ . Every chipped rupee is accounted for, every feather of every cucco in their garden and every drop of wine in the cellars is  _ there _ in black and white. Receipts. Inventories. The goddamn weight of the meat they bury every month for spoilage. They’re clean. I don’t know how, but they’re clean.”

“Huh,” says Cedric.

“Horseshit,” says Max, helping himself to a glass of something red-gold.

Hiraeth scrubs his free hand over his face. “I thought the same. But I can’t find a godsbedamned thing. Not even a little smudging of numbers to shave the taxes down a few hundred rupee. Loudest damn voice on the Council keeping the feuds afire, and he’s clean.”

“An honest man has dirt under his fingernails,” says Max, sipping his drink. “Not because he’s dirty, but because he isn’t. He works, and he makes little human errors, and he sweats and picks up the dust of the everyday, but he cleans himself up every night before he goes to his wife. No doubt you see the same pattern in the accounting of honest houses.”

Hiraeth tips his chin, conceding the point. “A little shabby arithmetic from a workman or some forgotten turnips and cheese and flowers for the mistress of the house every other month isn’t even enough to pay a day’s wage in the tax people like that short the crown.”

Julien snorts. “ _ Who scrubs himself pink has blood in his sink.  _ Always thought the proverb was about fastidious habits.”

“Every page is rotten with shadow alchemy, but they use it like a schoolchild uses pink rubber to hide sloppy handwriting,” says Hiraeth. “I looked into his connections, the careers of the knights he sends to the castle. Also clean.”

“Fuck,” says Cedric quietly. “Without Hebron, there’s not a lizard’s chance in a henyard of proving the profiteering ring  _ ever _ existed.”

“Oh,” says Julien, realization dawning across his open features.

“Yeah,” says Hiraeth, exhaustion settling into his flesh all at once. “And if we can’t stop him this winter, the Lord Marshal will put all of the Zora territories - east and west - to flame and sword. The Council’s already approved the first draft of the advance.”

Julien turns to Max. “If they massacre River Zora stranded downstream by mountain ice, the Jabu Queen will know before a month passes. We  _ can’t _ move the fleet fast enough to blockade her lagoon before her wrath drowns half the southern isles.”

Max grunts, looking at the dregs in his glass. “Then you don’t want to know what Labrynna paid to soothe her the last time Hyrule spilled blood in sacred waters.”


	27. Warning

Howsoever romantic the idea of a golden pen, without some common stuff underneath, any serious attempt to use the device promptly becomes torture. Zelda sits back from her morning correspondence, massaging her aching hand. She wishes she could persuade the servants to bring her good, common glass, or smooth warm cherrywood with bright brass nibs.

“King’s orders my foot,” grumbles Zelda.

Impa coughs.

“I don’t care. If I have to bend this blasted thing back into shape one more time I will scream, see if I don’t.”

“Language,” murmurs Impa.

“To the abyss with _language,”_ snaps Zelda, rising from her gilded chair with its cloth-of-gold rose brocade. “I have _two hundred_ more letters to finish this morning alone and I’ve had _enough_. I should not _have_ to _persuade_ the nobility to honor the laws of charity, and I should _not_ be the only avenue of succor for these poor homeless families. It is time the peerage learned to act with dignity and righteousness, or so help me I will burn _their_ houses down around their heads.”

Impa sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Dearest Princess. Please accept some tea and breakfast. Ulus even sends you a fruit tart. You will feel better when you have eaten.”

“I do not _want_ to eat,” snaps Zelda. She is so hungry her spine aches, but food means weight, and weight means flesh, and flesh means softness, and softness means it’s harder to bind herself into Sheik’s unforgiving garments. “I want a new pen that actually writes and won’t bend like wax in my hands. I want this miserable weather to break and bring us a fresh breeze. I want the funds to rebuild West Cartwheel street and I want to hire Vohenia to do it.”

“Dearest. We don’t always get what we want in life,” says Impa with a resigned tone. “I am _quite_ sure the expense of hiring a prominent artist to build _rowhouses_ will be prohibitive. What happened to your ideals of thrift?”

“So sell my chairs and tables,” says Zelda, gesturing at her useless wealth of feminine furnishings. “I hate them anyway and as I only have one ass, I can only use one at a time as it is. There’s got to be at least five hundred rupee in gold flowers in this room alone, and I’m sure _someone_ will pay for purple marble.”

“It is not seemly,” begins Impa.

“When did the Golden Ones ever tell us that? _Never,_ I say. I am the sacred maiden! _I_ speak for the gods. Not you. Not anybody. And _I_ say the endless rules of pure and proper and _princessly_ are the words of men. Do you know why no king nor priest of Light ever prays in the high holy sanctum? Because his fleshly weaknesses will _defile_ it,” says Zelda. She knows Impa knows this already, but it soothes something inside her to say it out loud. She wishes she dared say it to her father, but he wouldn’t listen anyway.

“At least drink the tea,” says Impa softly.

Zelda sighs, and all the energy bleeds out of her until she feels she could lay down on the rug right there like a cat. She glides across the room and perches with automatic, unthinking grace on another white-and-gold-and-roses chair to lift the gold-rimmed cup to her lips.

The tea is cold.

She drinks it anyway, knowing it is her own fault. As the wreck of half of Cartwheel street is her fault. If the sky had not suddenly and inexplicably dropped a thunderstorm on her folly, more would have been lost.

She tries to be glad that as Sheik she was able to get everyone out of the shabby little houses in time.

“Dearest,” says Impa, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Breakfast is for eating, not staring at.”

“I don’t want to eat,” murmurs Zelda, hardening herself to the tantalizing scent of savory lamb and sweet wildberries.

Impa grumbles something under her breath, but a knock at the door saves her from another lecture.

Zelda rises from her untouched breakfast, smoothing her features into proper maidenly poise as the deaf pageboy trembles his way into the room. He sets a tiny gilt tray on the nearest table, bows, and flees.

Impa collects a folded paper from the tray, frowning over it.

“What does my lord father want _now?”_

Impa shakes her head. “He doesn’t. This is - the herald forwards a petition for audience from some commoner. He _knows_ better. There must be some witchcraft or villainy afoot, or else the man’s starting to go senile.”

“What is the name? Maybe it is someone from Cartwheel street,” says Zelda, heart in her throat.

Impa shakes her head, surrendering the note. “Could be. Just says ‘a youth.’ That could mean anything.”

“Wait - what if it’s a message? Something he can’t say,” muses Zelda, a strange chill rippling through her. “Tell him to send the boy to my garden.”

“I cannot allow it - he could be an assassin. It isn’t safe,” says Impa.

“Nothing in this world is safe,” says Zelda, lifting her chin. “As crown princess I _order_ you to send the boy to me.”

Impa’s face goes blank. She bows, stiff and correct and subservient.

Zelda aches to see her so remote, resolving to find a way to make it up to her later. Maybe with a new sword, lighter than the one she carries now.

Once she leaves, Zelda takes the private royal staircase down to the inner gardens. She dares not hurry - outside her little tower room, anyone might see her, hear her. She pauses on a landing to straighten her veils, breathing a prayer to the Three for peace and wisdom and strength.

“A youth,” she tells her reflection in the window. “Oh _please,_ let it be the hero foretold. Hyrule needs his courage.”

She paces between the wilting flower beds and sparsely-leafed trellised roses, anxious for a sign from the distant gods.

Behind her, the castle guards’ halberds thump on stone, announcing her guest. She waits a long count of seven. She is on the point of turning when she hears hobnails on slate.

Fear curdles her empty stomach. She wrings her gloved hands. She pivots. Graceful. Serene. Correct.

Master Architect Link Vohenia of Nowhere In Particular But Probably The Army stands in her garden with a plain sword at his hip and ice in his eyes.

“Oh,” says Zelda, raising her hand to cover her mouth reflexively and wondering vaguely if it would do her any good should she scream.

He bows. Stiff. Formal. Correct.

“Um,” whispers Zelda, heart racing.

He stands. Cants his hip and folds his corded arms over his chest. He is not wearing Terminan fashion today, but clothes cut in Hylian style, except that every stitch is in shades of ash and charcoal, even to his tall riding boots.

“I - I - do you realize who I am?” Zelda stammers, trying and failing to regain control of the moment.

“My family is flattered by your attention,” he says, his tone saying he feels nothing of the kind. His voice carries a strange blend of burr and lilt, and again she wonders after his mother tongue.

“Oh,” says Zelda, scrambling after her scattered wits. “It is a pleasure to - make your acquaintance at last. Formally. Um. Your work is-”

He holds up a hand to stop her. “We have neither need of nor desire for your favors.”

“It isn’t charity - the crown will pay a fair wage for-”

“My commissions are closed,” he says.

Zelda folds her hands, and feels wretched. “The people of Castletown need your skills. _Hyrule_ needs your skills.”

“Keep your flattery and keep your bloody rupee. I will rebuild everything you destroyed _for free,_ and without reference to you or any other fool,” snaps Link.

Zelda stares at him. _How did you know-?_

“Hn,” he says. He unfolds his arms and draws from his tunic a small parcel. “Here.”

Zelda frowns in confusion, reaching for the tiny burden. It feels like a book. She pushes it away. “Oh - no, please don’t. It really is a gift. At least - tell me you’ve read it?”

He doesn’t move, but between one blink and the next she shares the garden with a slavering white wolf with blue eyes and the rune of war on his brow. Another blink and he is a man again, still standing exactly as before.

“Please,” whispers Zelda, drawing back.

“How _dare_ you,” he says quietly.

“I don’t understand why you are upset,” says Zelda. “I seek only to honor the Light of a faithful storyteller with these rare stories of hope and happiness. What offense have we given you-”

“More than enough,” snaps Link, raising his narrow jaw. The thin white scar crossing his throat shows above the stiff charcoal collar of his shirt. “You always were a spoiled child, thoughtless of the consequence your actions would bring to other people. But mark me: this will be the last of it. _Stay away from my family._ You’ve sown enough sorrow already.”

Zelda tries to speak, tries to deny his baseless accusations, but her tongue won’t answer her.

Link throws the book at her feet. “Do not meddle in things you _cannot possibly_ understand.”

“Please - at least let me try? The troubles of every subject of Hyrule are-”

“Don’t,” says Link, holding up his hand to forestall any further objection. “It begins _right there,_ Zelda. _People are not things.”_

“That - isn’t what I meant,” stammers Zelda, too shocked to correct his disrespectful address.

“It is,” he says, cold and flat. “Next time you dream of _evil eyes_ and _deadly storms,_ take a good hard look in a mirror and ask yourself how much blood you’re _personally_ ready to spill to preserve your crooked idea of order, because I will _never again_ do it _for you.”_

“How do you know about that-?” Zelda whispers.

“Hn,” says Link. He bows again, barely enough for civility to an equal, turns heel, and leaves without another word. He moves like a wolf, and he moves like a soldier, and he moves with the arrogant simmering violence of a man with nothing left to lose.

Zelda stands alone in the garden a long time, trembling as a fragile leaf in the storm.


	28. Lightsday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for some implied/referenced homophobia and references to fantasy racism and violence both systemic and specific.

Castletown on Lightsday is always a thing of noise and hurrying and ostentatious devotions and snappish parents attempting to rein in restless children. The fine, wide streets in the fashionable Fountain Precinct are little different, but Hiraeth decides it is nice to be shielded from it by heavy velvet curtains and brocade bedcurtains, even if he does have to lay askew and curl on his side to fit. There is even a tasseled silk rope to summon the servants if he wanted. 

Which he doesn’t. 

But tea  _ would _ be nice. 

Hiraeth groans and pulls a pillow over his head in a vain attempt to persuade himself back to sleep. He can’t stop thinking about Hebron. He can’t stop thinking about the war. He can’t stop thinking about the strange meeting last night.  _ Max!  _ Loyal to the Crown Princess of  _ not his country. _ It strains belief near to breaking, but he held the ring in his own hands.  _ What would it avail him to fake such a thing?  _ If the Labrynnan regent were to discover it, Max would lose his head by week’s end and half his family would follow soon after.

His mind also keeps returning to the cipher that is his father. Staunchly pragmatic and practically atheist, but treasures a complicated mechanical puzzle box inscribed with superstitious charms. Drinks like a fish, but never the worse for it very long. A veteran of the western front in the Hylian Civil Wars, except he’s apparently not listed in any record of the same. Carried his wives to Termina and back again, except he didn’t. 

And then there’s the matter of the stone-like mask, which throws all manner of junk in the gears. After the disgusting green drink last night and Julien’s strange behavior and the Minister’s odd little evasions, he’s not so sure that it  _ is _ a kind of reverse lens after all. 

“There are rational explanations for everything in this world,” says Hiraeth to the darkness under his borrowed pillow. “Only the stupid and those who prey on them believe the world moves by magic.”

The shadows do not answer. 

Sleep does not return. 

Hiraeth gives up and rolls out of bed to look for Julien. He nearly trips over Max in the hall, and the older man persuades him to join him downstairs for morning tea. He takes no notice whatever of Hiraeth’s incomplete state of dress, carrying a frivolous conversation all the way to the table, whereupon he signals the servants to close the door.

The latch clicks. 

Hiraeth swallows hard, tongue dry as stone. His eyes drift to the sword on the shelf behind his host. He knew years ago Maximilian had once been a mercenary, but he’d never imagined he was any good at it. He is too vain and frivolous for that. Surely. Except he is  _ never _ without that curved sword. 

“Do remember to breathe young man, as I’ve no interest in making an enemy of your esteemed father.”

“Sir,” says Hiraeth.

“I have exactly six questions for you, which you will answer quickly and truthfully to the best of your knowledge. Do I make myself clear?”

Hiraeth nods.

“What was your blood-mother’s name?”

“I don’t know.”

“When is your birthday?”

“I will be nineteen next summer solstice. I thought you knew-”

“Answer the question and  _ only _ the question. What happens when you are angry?”

“I don’t understand. I am angry when… I am angry. What else would happen?”

Max grunts, and suddenly Hiraeth is very much reminded of his father, though he and Max are wildly different in every obvious way. “When did you first start wearing that steel jewelry?”

“Since forever. When I was little, we went to Brother Goro - that is, the village smith - every year on my birthday to make the necklace longer. Father had him forge the bracelets in the winter I was fifteen.”

Max raises a brow. “Why?”

“It is a tradition from father’s home village. The firstborn son of every family wears chains like mine as a symbol of his responsibilities to his family, and community, and the world. They do not pass from brother to brother, but to the next firstborn.”

“Ah,” says Max, then nothing else for several minutes. 

Hiraeth begins to wonder if he miscounted. He also wonders when the tea will arrive and if he will get to have any. He winds his hands around the polished, curvaceous arms of the fashionable ashwood ladies’ chair that is the only one in the room wide enough to hold him, seeking an anchor in the real, then thinks better of it. The landlord will not thank him for wrecking the furniture.

“I love my cousin,” says Max softly.

Hiraeth waits for the question. He fidgets with the cuffs of his (somewhat completely rumpled) shirt, buttoning and unbuttoning and buttoning again.

“Do you share your mother’s opinions?”

Hiraeth laughs, baffled, nervous. He feels like he is struggling to walk across a slippery log bridge, only it isn’t the little village stream below him, but a chasm full of jagged knives. “That’s a big category, sir. My mother has at least six opinions on everything that ever existed.”

Max is not amused. “Answer the question.” 

Hiraeth gestures helplessly. “Sometimes? I can’t read minds, Max. No one can. What are you  _ really _ asking?”

Max rises from his chair and circles the table to stand eye-to eye with him. Again Hiraeth is reminded of his father, in the way he moves, in the quiet way he speaks, all frivolity and affectation vanished. “Do you. Share. Your mother’s. Opinions.”

Hiraeth spreads his empty hands in the air, unable to manage any answer.

“About Labrynnans,” says Max, flat.

“What?”

Max taps his broad fingers on the table, and the empty white teacups rattle on their saucers. “Answer the goddamned question boy. Do you share your mother’s opinions on Labrynnan men of liberal interests?”

Hiraeth frowns in confusion. His stepmother is not well educated in bookish things, nor as accomplished in the arts as she wishes her daughters to be, but she isn’t stupid. He agrees with his father that it is silly to be worried about the girls’ marriage prospects when they are still children, but he agrees with their mother that they deserve to marry well. That they should have every opportunity to earn the attentions of an intelligent, educated, respectable suitor of stable means and healthy appreciation for the arts. 

“With all due respect sir, given the recent scandals, I do expect there  _ would _ be some trouble with her if one of the twins was smitten with  _ any _ foreigner, and she will surely be rude to anyone from your country at first,” says Hiraeth, shaking his head. “But if they are truly set in their affections, and those affections are returned with honorable intent, I am sure my father and I will be able to persuade her.”

“Don’t play stupid with me,” snaps Max. “It will not go well for you.”

Hiraeth pulls his lip between his teeth, mind racing in circles around the cipher. “Wait. Liberal interests.”

Max says nothing. Does not even blink.

“You mean,” stammers Hiraeth, fragments of odd silences and evasions and hints clicking together in his head. He lowers his voice as much as he is able, hoping he is not about to make an enemy of the man. “You speak of men who lay down with other men?”

Max says nothing, his expression utterly opaque.

“I thought - he carried a little flame for Anna,” says Hiraeth weakly. He is not at all sure that he understands anything anymore. He scrubs a hand over his face, embarrassed that he is trembling with nerves. He does not like to be caught in the stupid mental fog of early morning, and even less does he like to be pressed to solve puzzles in a foreign subject. “Is that why he’s been strange this season? Does he really think so little of me that he believes I judge that unscrupulous merchant for his _eccentric_ _bedgames_? That I would turn my back on my best friend because some biddy hens disapprove of how he manages his private affairs?”

Max raises one elegantly sculpted brow.

“Look, it’s  _ fine _ . I won’t tell my folks he’s a confirmed bachelor ok? And no, unlike my mother I don’t give a good goddamn who he likes to entertain,” says Hiraeth, hoping the man will give him some sign,  _ any _ sign, that he holds the right thread.

Max merely grunts, taps the table again, and nods to himself as though he understands everything and is resolved to reveal no opinion on it whatever. 

Hiraeth fidgets.

Max stalks to the door and folds it open again. When he turns about to reclaim his chair, the confident, predatory cadence is gone, and his features are rearranged into his usual impression of vague, vapid amusement at the world. He rings the little silver bell to summon the servants and lounges in his chair, picking infinitesimal specks of lint from his indigo doublet.

Hiraeth resolves never to underestimate a man of fashion ever again. 

Eric brings the tea, and an apple-cheeked maid Hiraeth hasn’t seen before follows him with a tray of sliced pears and fresh bread and soft white cheese. She blushes to the tips of her faintly pointed ears when she looks at him, increasing her uncanny resemblance to Anna, if only her health would improve. She whispers, asking if he would like her to pour the tea for him.

Hiraeth smiles at her, and rumbles a polite assent, as he is not at all sure he can manage breakfast without making even more of a fool of himself spilling tea or shattering the cup. Better not to break the teapot and douse the table as well. He nearly laughs when she blushes even harder, but he does not wish to frighten her any worse.

Max does not offer even small conversation, and neither does Hiraeth. His entire focus is centered on being careful with the dishes and cutlery until he hears Julien’s heeled boots on the stairs. Hiraeth abandons his breakfast at once, unfolding himself from the uncomfortable chair and ducking out into the parlor to meet him.

Julien grunts a vague greeting, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from his cornflower blue woolen waistcoat. Every last brass button is neatly fastened, his snowy neckcloth tucked smartly into the gold-banded collar. His brown boots are fresh polished, and his pale breeches spotless. He is  _ never _ so crisp and plain, at any hour, and he never wears a shirt that hasn’t  _ some _ bit of lace at the cuffs.

Hiraeth feels himself slovenly and coarse just  _ looking _ at his friend, but he shoves all of that aside to stand between him and the breakfast room. He lays his hand on Julien’s shoulder, and pulls him into a warm hug.

“Uh,” says Julien to his chest, awkward and stiff in his arms.

Hiraeth ruffles a hand through his curly brown hair, scrounging through his fuzzy mind for words. In Labrynnian, so his friend need not trouble himself over a foreign tongue when he is only just risen. “You foolish creature. Why didn’t you  _ tell _ me?”

Julien tenses. “Uh. Tell you what.”

“Fah, don’t be stupid,” says Hiraeth, releasing him from the hug but keeping his hand on the man’s taut shoulder. Mostly so he can take a knee and bring his eyes level - or almost level - with his dearest friend. “Listen to me, Jules. I will  _ never _ abandon you. Ok? You are  _ my _ friend and the gossips of the world can hang themselves by their own tongues for all I care. I might not be able to fight for you, but by the gods, I can be a wall if you need it. Ok?”

“Uh. ‘Kay?” Julien answers, blinking, his expression blank.

Hiraeth heaves a swift breath in relief. He pats his shoulder and braces his other hand on his knee to stand. “Okay. Good. Excellent.”

Julien just blinks up at him.

Hiraeth laughs, shooing him into the breakfast room. “Come on, let’s have tea. Chase the cobwebs out of our heads.”

Julien follows, and settles in with a cup of plain black tea. He eats sparingly and says less. This is not as remarkable as it would otherwise be, as Max fills the silence with the morning’s gossip and yesterday evening’s as well. Hiraeth  _ tries _ to pretend interest he cannot feel, and he  _ tries _ to listen politely. But Hiraeth has seen another,  _ far _ more interesting facet to the man, and now it is harder than ever to endure the nonsense.

Also he had much rather talk to Julien. But his friend seems preoccupied, and indeed directly after the meal, he excuses himself to attend to some unspecified errand. 

Hiraeth thanks Max for his hospitality, and as soon as he is more-or-less presentably dressed for the walk, he leaves rupee for each of the servants and starts the long walk home. He has decided he will pretend he worked through the night so as to leave early, and freshen up before visiting the tailor to see if even  _ one _ new piece is finished. If not, he will surely have to slit the back of one of last year’s nicer waistcoats - maybe the rust-colored one - and thread extra laces in before tomorrow’s recital. Ishi will never let him hear the end of it if he wears brown.

Bells ring out from the little temple at the edge of his own neighborhood, announcing the noon devotions have begun. Hiraeth does miss the pageantry and the songs and the way the glorious jewelbox windows make the white stone seem to glow. But he doesn’t miss it enough to race the rest of the way before the great steel doors are shut. 

When he makes the turn into the plaza though, he sees his father perched on the stone fence outside the temple, dressed in shadows. He is sipping from a little flask, which is no great surprise. He also has his sword belted on, which  _ is _ . Most other people do carry a short knife or dagger of some kind, but not many people carry longswords in town. Especially on Lightsday. Link takes his sword when he travels, of course, but in the city he usually leaves it locked in the cabinet. 

“Bit early for that,” rumbles Hiraeth as he draws closer. Drinking in public is also something most people avoid on Lightsday, at least until evening. 

Link shrugs, offering a lopsided grin and the flask too. “Or a bit late.”

Hiraeth waves it away, tucking his hands in his pockets. The stone fence is some four and a half feet tall, so for once he doesn’t have to bow his head to study him. “Thought you hated black.”

“It’s gray,” says Link, matter-of-fact, but there is a tiny crinkle at the edge of his intensely blue eyes.

Hiraeth raises a brow and sweeps his gaze pointedly over his father’s strange outfit with a doubtful hum. It is true, the high-collared shirt and loose hose are more of a charcoal tone, but his tall boots are iron black, his belt and baldric are black, and his thigh-length tunic is  _ so _ black it absorbs the light completely, giving nothing back.

His father chuckles at him, gesturing with the flask. “You get in a fight with the iron?”

“Nah,” says Hiraeth with a shrug. “Worked late and slept on a bench is all. Can’t recommend it.”

Link’s lopsided grin fades, and he folds his elegant, scarred white hands around the flask. His tone becomes serious. “You’re pouring a lot of your youth into this job.”

Hiraeth scuffs his boots on the cobbles. No one is on the street to hear. He shouldn’t so much as hint - but he isn’t sure he can bear even one more round of  _ are you happy in your work _ . 

It is a long time since he could say with any confidence that he knows what happiness even feels like, but the one and only time he confessed that to his father, Link pulled him from school, forbidding him to leave the house _ , _ or even close his door more than halfway. He made him drink pot after pot of sour tea, and banished everyone from the kitchen to cook fancy mushrooms a hundred different ways and hover while Hiraeth tried them, anxious to invent a recipe he liked. He dragged home new books about every kind of machine and scientific marvel and essay in the natural sciences. He bought sweets and cakes and new bright cloth for blankets and pillows and curtains in his son’s room. And every night when everyone else was in bed, Link would sit under the apple tree, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth in silence until dawn.

After a fortnight of that, when Hiraeth was dead sure he’d go mad if he had to spend another day forcibly idle and hovered over and cosseted,  _ he _ snuck down to the garden too. He’d meant to pick a fight, and readied dozens of  _ reasons _ and  _ evidences _ and  _ precedents _ for the purpose, but when he stood before his father under the stars and said  _ you can’t make people be something they aren’t _ , Link shattered. So in the end, Hiraeth sat under the apple tree too, and held his father as he sobbed himself into a stupor over whatever secret grief drove him.

“It’s  _ important _ baba,” says Hiraeth at last. “Bad things are going to happen if I don’t solve it.”

Link lowers his voice. “Don’t try to shoulder the sins of this country. The land was drenched in blood and greed long before you or I were ever born.”

_ That is a strange thing to say, when you think I am merely balancing accounts and have no education in history whatsoever.  _ Hiraeth studies him in the quiet, listening to the faint hymns on the morning breeze. “Baba. Can I ask you something?”

“I’m here,” says Link softly.

_ Also a strange thing to say. Most people would say yes or no - but you always answer this way, when you are obviously right in front of me. Why? _ Hiraeth keeps his voice low, and holds his father’s eye as he speaks, watching for any smallest hint of feeling. “Where did you go when the war took your village?”

Link does not flinch. His blue eyes do not flicker. His voice reveals nothing. “Where did my brandy go?”

Hiraeth rubs his stomach and rumbles solemnly. “A good home.”

Link tips back his golden head and  _ laughs _ . Good and hearty and open and honest, tapering into infectious giggles.

“Seriously though,” says Hiraeth with a lopsided grin. “You might change the cabinet locks, because where  _ I _ found it was Ishi’s room.”

Link raises a brow and sips from his flask, rolling the liquor over his tongue.

“True as dawn,” says Hiraeth, leaning his hip against the stone fence and to hell with his trousers.  _ Needs washed anyway. _

“Damn,” says Link, shaking his head.

“She’s too clever for her own good,” agrees Hiraeth. 

Link grunts and gestures with the flask, his tone serious again. “Don’t say that Jojo. It is the nature of children to be curious and wild and fearless and into every mischief. Let her enjoy this time, for once it is over, she can never go back.”

Hiraeth studies the cipher before him, uncertain how to answer. His father has always been a strange mixture of strict and indulgent, absolutely immovable on some things, fiercely overprotective in others, and yet a tireless champion of frivolous, idle pleasures. He insists his children put faithful attention into their education, but unlike his wife, he is indifferent to the idea of that education leading to achievement and accolades and advancement. He insists the bulk of  _ every _ meal be vegetables, forbids any bones remain in  _ any _ meat when it reaches the table, maintains an almost religious conviction in the healthful properties of pickled radishes - and yet showers his children with sweets and fruits and desserts on every possible occasion. 

“But yes I will change the locks,” says Link with a lopsided grin, lifting the flask for another measured sip. Whatever is in the flask, he seems to be savoring it today. Hiraeth wonders what it is, and why it is different, and if it has anything to do with the way he is dressed.

Hiraeth’s tongue runs away with him while he is busy wondering. “You were small when you lost your village, weren’t you.”

But his father actually  _ answers _ , calm and matter-of-fact, staring vaguely across the plaza. “I left with nothing but a sword on my back, a few mementos of the dead in my pockets, and a childish makeshift shield of dekubark on my arm. I lived everywhere and nowhere. I walked every road in Hyrule. Drifted from village to village. Ended up in Termina for a while.”

Hiraeth stares. His father  _ never _ speaks of his past - and here on a random Lightsday outside a humble neighborhood temple, dressed like the shadow of a storybook hero, he lays it out in plain words.

“More than once,” adds Link, tipping his head like he’s conceding to a challenge only he can hear.

“Alone?”

_ Now _ Link winces. But he does not lift the flask - he merely turns, his blue eyes deep and terrible as forever. “I’ve been to places where people live so close together they build their houses one atop the other, and I’ve walked desert roads for three weeks straight without meeting another living soul. I’ve seen Castor and Akkala, Holodrum and Labrynna. I’ve sailed the south seas and the western isles, climbed the peaks of Eldin and Thunderhead and Hebra and Knifewall and carved my way through the depths of the Faron jungle.”

Hiraeth shakes his head, imagining the vastness of the entire known world under his father’s boots. “How did you  _ live _ like that baba?”

Link shrugs, as if it is normal to speak of a child wandering homeless through war-ravaged countries and feral wilderness. “Odd jobs here and there. I was just The Boy. The expendable stranger. Willing and able to do things other people couldn’t. And when the work was finished, I left.”

Hiraeth feels sick to hear this horribleness of unknown long-ago strangers who looked at a war orphan and said  _ it is ok if this child dies doing the thing I am afraid to do myself _ and wonders if it was a terrible idea to eat breakfast at all. But he cannot stop thinking about Max’s questions, and the Minister's hints, and he decides that as long as he is halfway to throwing up, he might as well keep going. “When did you meet my mother?”

“I needed milk for you. Lost the goat to a feral dog one morning in the middle of nowhere,” he says with another shrug, but something changes in his eyes, and his lips curve in a sour-apple smile. “Hard to imagine now, but I remember the days when you were so small I could wrap you in one of my tunics and still carry you across my chest, hidden under my cloak.”

“I meant,” says Hiraeth, feeling a pang of guilt when his father winces. They have never spoken of this, but his father is not stupid. He must know that one day Hiraeth would ask. “My  _ other _ mother.”

“Ah,” says Link, and nothing more. The smile fades, but he doesn’t look away. 

“You don’t  _ have _ to talk about it,” Hiraeth hurries to add. “I was just - the work I’m doing brought it to mind.”

Link works his jaw like he’s chewing on his answer, his eyes narrowing. “I don’t follow how-”

“Because the man whose rupee I’m counting hates desert people like other people hate scorpions,” says Hiraeth, unable to hold his gaze as he says it. He shouldn’t even say that much - anyone with any idea of politics could see he means Hebron.

Link grunts, and his expression softens. “It was not a pretty time. A lot of people have done very bad things, fighting over that river and the highlands and the mines and the ancient bones out in the Sands. But those days are over, Jojo.”

Hiraeth nods, and listens to the quiet hymns and stares at the quiet plaza. He barely even breathes the question. “What if they’re not?”

“I’m here,” says Link, and though his voice is still gentle and low, everything else about him is suddenly hard and dangerous. 

Hiraeth gathers his courage for the second time that morning, speaking as quietly as he knows how, pretending to be watching a stray cucco in the plaza. “What if some people think those days _weren’t_ _bad_ _enough_. What if they’re willing to do unspeakable things to bring those days _back_. What if they wear piety and patriotism and perfection like a paper mask, stuffing their pockets with stolen spoils every time a foreigner dies in the name of the Light?”

Link is silent for a long time, his expression completely opaque. He slowly screws the cap into the flask he hasn’t tasted in half an hour. He tucks the little vessel in a pocket sewn to his baldric. He pushes to his feet, standing atop the wall to resettle his clothing, as if he needs his tunic to hang straight and his cuffs to break just  _ so _ in order to think.

Hiraeth glances up at him, but the light is behind Link now, and everything but his sword hilt and his golden hair is shadows.

“Then they will reap the consequence of their sins,” says Link. Even. Cold. Matter-of-fact. He hops down from the wall easily, nonchalant, as if it is somehow a  _ normal _ thing people do, jumping nearly their own height. He rests his hand on the hilt of his plain sword, tipping his chin to look up at him, sidelong. “Do not tarnish your happiness fretting over the arbiter’s burden, Jojo. Treasure your youth, for you will only have it once.”

Hiraeth frowns.  _ That is  _ **_also_ ** _ rather a strange way to answer. What did you  _ **_really_ ** _ do for a living, before I was born? What were those ‘odd jobs’ other people hired a rootless orphan to take care of? Why did you always leave after? _

“Hn,” says Link, pivoting towards the temple entrance. He moves like Max did after the door was closed. Except more so. Somehow. 

The rich brass temple bells awaken all at once, filling the square with joyous noise. The temple doors open, and people dressed in every bright color pour down the broad stone steps. 

Hiraeth cannot enjoy the song properly, and struggles to reassemble himself to greet his mother and sisters as they too emerge into the clear morning sunlight. Link smiles at them, and swings Leela up on his shoulder, nodding along in apparent good humor at whatever the others are talking about.

But Hiraeth feels a strange chill watching how  _ imperfectly _ his father puts on the mask of the simple, cheerful artisan, and wonders how anyone could ever think he would run  _ away _ from a fight. 


	29. Charity

The rude little chapel in the middle of West Cartwheel Street stinks of soured woodash, tallow candles, and scorched pitch. Zelda nearly empties her stillroom of memoryleaf and lavender to hang from the heavy rafters and behind every crude wooden statue. It doesn’t help.

The first ten or twelve feet of the sad building is rough-cut Eldin granite no doubt salvaged - or stolen - from the old city walls. All the rest is barn-quality Necluda clay bricks, dusty old timber, and cheap mismatched tin shingles. It boasts exactly six windows, all theoretically protected by iron bars and steel netting. Zelda does not understand why the resident priest bothers keeping the fire-shattered glass, as it was only painted, and not even in pictures or patterns, just loose swirls of single hues.

On the inside, a thick layer of lime-washed daub smooths away some of the crudeness, and the dim twilight and smoky candles hide some of the cracks and patches and stains. The statues of the saints cannot be so easily flattered. Zelda tries to avoid even looking at them, they are  _ that _ ugly. 

Worse, one of the little alcove shrines off the pathetically tiny apothecary garden is downright heretical. She feels sick every time she thinks of it, and how many fresh wildflowers and candlestumps and tiny rushlights adorn the plinth and beastly sculpture of a demon the priest says is known only as The Hopeless. 

It is the only beautiful object the chapel even owned until half its parish burned and brought royal charity to its doors — and it is a sensitive and sympathetic portrait of ram-horned, lion-tailed, boar-faced  _ demon _ .

Zelda tries to quietly persuade the elderly priest to take the idol down or at least close that alcove. He refuses, and grovels before the Sacred Maiden that she forgive his flock their small comforts in their time of trouble. They believe The Hopeless intercedes with the gods of Light for his devotees, that  _ he _ sent the mysterious sheikah to save their lives as their homes and livelihoods burned, that he will be angered and let the gods take more from them if they do not thank him. 

He tells her The Hopeless has sat on that blasphemous altar for longer than anyone can remember, and its acquisition isn’t recorded in any logbook of any priest ever charged with the keeping of this parish. He tells her that common people do not readily surrender the comfort of devotions learned from their grandparents, who learned from their grandparents, all of whom passed down stories of how The Hopeless brought them this or that comfort in the midst of disaster, or how he diverted the worst of a misfortune to Someone Not Me, Or At Least Not My Loved Ones. He tells her that it is difficult to persuade common people to thank the very gods that destroyed their lives for not destroying even more - and that many will shatter under the weight of sorrow if the attempt is made. 

Zelda yields.

She does not, however, bow in respect to the lifeless statue with its upside-down, three-bladed spear. She does not lay flowers of any kind - not even withered ones, though she is tempted - before its cloven hooves. She does not bring or light any candles.

But she also does not speak against the temporarily homeless - and in some cases, now truly destitute - people of West Cartwheel Street continuing in their blasphemous habits. No matter how sick she feels.

Impa is angry when  _ she _ sees the statue, and even angrier when Zelda forbids her to steal  _ or _ destroy it. As much as Zelda hates it, the thing is  _ only _ a statue, not a living relic. No spirit dwells in it, and no magic empowers it, good or ill. She is afraid what deeper heresies these ignorant commoners might turn to if their idol is taken away before they have been brought back to proper reverence for the Lady of Light.

Impa grumbled the first time Zelda poured out hundreds of rupee to buy new blankets, and toys of wood and wool for the children, and fill an entire royal supply wagon with good flour and fat pumpkins, tart early apples and preserved spiced berries, wheels of hard cheese and ropes of dried sausage, pots of dried mushrooms and herbs and even a casket of roasted black tea.

She swears and threatens to lock Zelda in her tower until she is prepared to comport herself with the dignity befitting a Crown Princess when she sees Zelda climb up beside the driver on yet another Lightsday afternoon to personally deliver these gifts to the parish of West Cartwheel Street.

Zelda threatens in turn to play a lullaby. As she does  _ every _ Lightsday. 

This time Impa does not yield. 

The driver waits patiently for her to climb down from the wagon and speak to her bodyguard privately. Again. 

He does not comment Impa’s absence when she returns alone, nor does he breathe a word about hearing any music from the tower. Zelda feels rotten for leaning on the power of the harp, but what is to be done? Impa refuses to understand. 

The hearts of the people must be reclaimed for the Light. Must given the courage to cast off the chains of superstition. Must be shown the wisdom of overcoming their fear of this false god.

Otherwise, something  _ terrible _ is going to happen.


	30. Zephyrsday

Slubbed Termina silk is one thing - silk velvet is another. Hiraeth stands before the hall mirror, marveling at the soft spice-red garment. It is cut loose and long, even for him, which is amazing in itself, but instead of buttons it has secret little disks of steel and lodestone sewn inside the placket. Nor is he quite sure what to call the thing, for it is  _ like _ a waistcoat, and  _ like _ a tunic, and  _ like _ the long vented linen shirts they all wore as children and still wear for sleeping, but it is lined with tissue-fine rust-colored linen and meant to take the place of both shirt and waistcoat in one. 

“Baba, I can’t wear this.” Hiraeth pets the kitten-soft pile and traces a fingertip over the simple but elegant onion-gold spirals embroidered on the deep band collar and straight cuffs.

Link makes a rude noise and hops up on the wooden chair again to hold the jacket for him. His father is wearing the same thing he wears most often: white shirt, tan breeches, dark riding boots. He never wears any other kind of shoes, and though tonight he wears a dove-gray wool velvet doublet in deference to his daughters’ demands, he prefers tunics and long Terminan-style waistcoats - though he never wears a coat over either one, and propriety be damned. “Your sisters pooled their festival money to buy that cloth. They’ve been beside themselves with excitement to see it on you from the day it was finished.”

“But I will only ruin it,” murmurs Hiraeth, smoothing the front - not because it is wrinkled but because it feels amazing, both on his hands and to his skin beneath. The color is richer than anything he’s worn since he was small, and makes a bold contrast with his onion-gold breeches and best dark boots.

“Then we will buy you another. It is more than time you had a proper holiday tunic again,” says Link, shaking the dark jacket in wordless demand.

Hiraeth hesitates. He doesn’t understand why this time it is ok for a man to be fancy, when his father made explicitly clear three years ago that it was  _ not _ . He may not be wearing festival curls and kohl and jewels this time, but this long velvet shirt with its gold embroidery makes him feel warm and fluttery inside in much the same way. 

“Don’t be stubborn,” says Link, meeting his eye in the mirror.

Hiraeth swallows his anxiousness as best he can, and shrugs into the midnight blue wool jacket with its gold silk lining and gold stars-and-ribbons embroidery around the edges. When he dares look at his reflection again, his stomach turns over. The beautiful, generously full drape of the long jacket somehow makes the velvet shirt-thing even  _ more _ bold.  _ Julien _ would look well in such fashions - though he favors bright colors all over - but Hiraeth mostly feels strange. He’s worn only subtle brownish-blues and warm brownish-rusts, deep tans and plain browns ever since they came away to Castletown. 

“There,” says his father, standing on his toes on the chair to brush some bit of fuzz from his shoulder. “What do you think now? Do you like it?”

Hiraeth fidgets and avoids his reflection. He is afraid to make his father angry with asking questions, and he is ashamed to admit he has always longed for pretty things just as much as any of his sisters. “Maybe if I don’t do  _ anything _ between now and the recital at the end, and stand stone-still at the back of the room through all of it - that is what, six hours? Seven? Have I  _ ever _ managed that long without doing something stupid?”

Link tips his chin, studying him with a strange intensity. “That isn’t what I asked. Do you  _ like _ it?”

Hiraeth bows his head and smooths the jacket. “Yes baba. It is nice.”

Link nods as if this settles everything. He hops down from the chair, beckoning. “Come - I have something for you in my workroom. I’ve been keeping it for the right time.”

Hiraeth winces. “But - there are so many   _ stairs _ . What if I-”

“Nonsense,” says Link, waving off the very real probability that his clumsy son will trip over his own feet and rip his new finery to shreds. “But if you had rather wait, I will only be a moment.”

“Ok,” says Hiraeth weakly. It is only obvious that the safest thing is to move as little as possible until he can have help getting  _ out _ of the fragile garments. He pets the soft cloth idly, and wishes he could show Julien.  _ Would he smile or would he laugh at me?  _

Downstairs, the girls are giggling about something - probably gossip.  _ They _ were dressed an hour ago, their instruments sent ahead to the assembly rooms in Peachblossom Street. All that remains for them is to arrange hats and cloaks and gloves and baskets of treats and amusements for the party.

Hiraeth frowns at his reflection as his father climbs the stairs two at a time and wonders if  _ he _ is supposed to bring something, and forgot. He wonders if his stepmother will expect him to talk to half the strangers in the room again, and what he can possibly invent to talk  _ about _ . He wishes Anna’s father would let her accept invitations to these evening gatherings, and he wonders if Julien would think them vulgar after the elegance of court.

Link  _ tsks _ at him and makes him turn, pressing an ebony box inlaid with mother-of-pearl knotwork into his hands.

“It is not my birthday,” rumbles Hiraeth, afraid to open it.

Link cups his hands around his own, staring at his chest instead of meeting his eye. “I know you would like fancy words better, but I am not good at words. I am not smart, and I don’t know how to be what you need most. I just - I need you to  _ know _ that I  _ do _ love you, and I want you to be happy.”

His hands itch strangely, and he has the mad impression that there are amber-and-silk-sparks caught between them. It doesn’t make any sense, but neither does anything else in the last three days. Hiraeth feels as though ropes are cinching tight around his chest, and his hands shake as he opens the fancy little box. 

“Oh,” he breathes, staring in wonder at the butterfly brooch nestled in black silk velvet inside that box. The jeweled wings stretch as wide as his hand is long. They shimmer in the lamplight — each little faceted fire topaz teardrop filling the black filigree veins flashes red-violet and blue-green. From the center hangs a fat shining blue-white teardrop that catches so much light it seems to shine under its own power.

Link presses his hands, tense and anxious. 

Hiraeth cannot bring himself to care that his touch stings. “It would be some kind of sin to break something this pretty.”

“So you like it?” Link murmurs. 

Hiraeth nods, brushing his thumb along the edge of one wing. “It’s beautiful.”

Link lets go of his hands.

“Don’t - I can’t keep this. I will only ruin it,” says Hiraeth, trying to make him take the box away.

“Hn,” says Link, ignoring him to hop back up onto the chair. He gestures, beckoning him close. “I will help.”

“Please, these things are too fine for a graceless beast like me,” begs Hiraeth.

“Do not  _ ever _ say that again,” snaps Link, cutting the air with the blade of his hand, his voice harsh. “Do not even  _ think _ it. I forbid it-! Do you hear?  _ Never again. _ ”

Hiraeth stares, speechless. He’s never seen his father’s mood change that violently. And over nothing-! A figure of speech. A truth anyone who knows him for  _ five minutes  _ must acknowledge.

Link huffs like an angry bull, squaring his shoulders. He says nothing,  _ does _ nothing, for a long count of three. He huffs again, and reaches into the box, gesturing for Hiraeth to move closer.

Hiraeth obeys, standing as still as he is able while his father pins the jeweled butterfly to his new jacket, right over his heart.

“I commissioned this from a master jeweler in Great Bay twenty-four - no, twenty-two - no, twenty… six years ago,” says Link, working the fine gilded wires through the wool. He is calm and detached and rational again, his voice everything smooth and pleasant. “There is a Zora city there, off the coast of Termina. You would not like it much, but their artists make beautiful things. I brought them the tear-jewel, and told them - a - a - a story. This is what they made of it.”

_ Before I was born - but how can you not know when? Four years is a lot of time to misplace for anyone, but  _ **_you_ ** _ never forget  _ **_anything_ ** . “You don’t wear jewelry except for those plain swordsman’s earloops though - did you once?”

Link shakes his head, twisting the clasp shut. “It was a peace-gift. I hoped it would be a small happiness for someone the gods took from me the very night I went to give it to them.”

“Oh,” breathes Hiraeth. He feels strangely buzzy and lightheaded, like he’s halfway drunk. “I’m sure they would have loved it. I will  _ try _ to be careful.”

Link sniffs and nods and pats the wool smooth around the brooch. He lets his hand rest on Hiraeth’s chest a moment, sniffing again, staring right through him. When he speaks, he whispers. “I’m sorry. I know you won’t believe me, but it is true. I am more sorry than I think you will ever be able to understand.”

Even though Hiraeth is half again his father’s height, even though when Link stands on a damn chair Hiraeth still has to look  _ down _ at him, even though he is of age and secure in his profession, he is three years old again and he is afraid of his beloved father and he isn’t sure what is dream and what is real. He lays a trembling hand on his father’s shoulder, struggling to find any words at all. 

Link sniffs again, bowing to lean into him. 

“It’s ok. I understand,” murmurs Hiraeth, wrapping him in a hesitant embrace. He is pretty sure he’s lying on both counts, but it is what other people say at times like this, and he feels like he will burst if he doesn’t say  _ something _ . “Everything will be ok.”

Footsteps thumping up the stairs. 

“Ugh hibi you are  _ so _ slow,” groans Kyra from the landing. “If Mariann gets there ahead of us  _ again _ she’ll be  _ insufferable _ .”

“I don't see how it matters when the whole street will be at a standstill anyway,” Hiraeth rumbles, strangely reluctant to pull away. It is so rare these days for his father to  _ want _ to hug him at all.

“She’ll see the carriage, stupid. There’s only four other families that hire carriages, and none of  _ them _ need a barouche,” groans Kyra, stomping most of the way up to the hall. She stops dead when she sees him, gasping, her green eyes wide. She squeals in delight.

“Hn,” says Hiraeth, squeezing Link a little tighter and smirking at his sister. “Shall I take that as forgiveness for being tardy?” 

“Oh hibi  _ yes _ ohmygods baba you  _ did _ buy the black wool yesyesYes! Ishi-! Saso-! Come look,” cries Kyra. “It’s  _ perfect _ .”

“It’s blue,” says Link, somewhat muffled by having his face still mashed against Hiraeth’s chest.

“I thought we were in a hurry.” Hiraeth chuckles at her and ruffles a hand through Link’s golden hair. He’s never explained why he hates black so much, but after seeing him dressed like a deadly shadow yesterday, Hiraeth begins to suspect it is just one more thing that is because of the wars. “Come on baba, before the girls decide to make mince of us.”

“Yeah,” says Link, pulling away. His eyes are dry, but anyone could see it is a perilously near thing.

The sisters thunder up the stairs, shrieking in excitement, the curses of their mother not far behind.

According to Myra, although they arrive a full hour before sunset and well ahead of over half the glittering crowd, they are fashionably late. 


	31. Gentleborn

There are vanishingly few virtues to wearing full silk court dress out of doors on a humid, windless autumn day that more closely resembles high summer than halfway into harvest season. Especially when the High King most explicitly requests that his daughter attend the evening entertainments in maidenly veils, layered overgowns, and all twelve goddamn petticoats.  

Afternoon becomes twilight, and Zelda clings to the slender comfort of being the sole person in attendance at the little ’floating concert’ who is not plagued with mosquitoes.

Nonetheless she is grateful to return to solid ground after the tedious symphony winds to a close, where at least the stench of lake fish and rotting weeds is slightly less noxious. Unfortunately this also means she must surrender the shield of limited space on the royal barge. The Earl of Necluda remains deep in conversation with her father and ignores her for once, but she is not so lucky with the Duke of Ordon or Lord Elapidan or Earl Hebron or any of the foreign envoys. 

Lady Euphemia Pelligret waits exactly long enough to cut in that Zelda is seriously contemplating the virtues of faking a fainting fit. Not that she actually likes Euphemia’s vulgar conversation in the slightest, but she is a woman with enthusiastic opinions and questionable fidelity to her husband, Lord Marten Pelligret of Labrynna. None of the other Lords is drunk enough yet to be interested in drawing his ire, so within ten minutes they all find themselves urgently wanted in a conversation Elsewhere.

Of course, once she has successfully marooned Zelda in a sea of ladies, Euphemia giggles and presses her to indulge in chocolates and apple tarts and cream trifles. Impa hovers at the edge of the coterie, glaring. Even if Zelda wanted one of the confections - which she doesn’t - she doesn’t dare even pretend to humor Euphemia. The moment Impa catches her with any food, even a wafer of honeyglass, she will say it is proof against Zelda’s assurance that she is not hungry, and make her sit in front of a full six-course meal until she eats at least half of everything. 

It is not fair at all, for Zelda has nearly mastered the weakness of flesh and rarely feels hungry at all anymore, except when she is unlucky enough to catch the scent of spicebark and stewed apples, or butter-roasted jewels-of-the-field imported from Castor, or seared lamb dressed in sour cream and pickled stingroot, or if she is foolish enough to wander too close to the kitchen courtyards on baking day.

“You must at least try these delightful truffles, dear Princess. My darling Marten bought me half a dozen of these dusted with your rare west highlands erisfruit on Lightsday last. The way the heat magnifies the savory and sweet is absolutely magnificent. You must promise you will prevail upon your lord father to slip a few barrels of this spice into this year’s trade accord.”

“I cannot,” demurs Zelda, accepting a silk-swaddled goblet of watered pear wine. “Erisfruit doesn’t actually grow well in that region - it is too cold at night. What we acquired last spring was grown closer to the Dragon’s Maw and Thundering Canyon regions. If the labels on the pots the Royal Knights brought may be trusted, the hottest are cultivated in scattered oases and ruined cultic shrines in the wastelands of the sand sea. We are unlikely to have anything like a steady supply so long as the desert thieves remain hostile.”

Euphemia giggles. “Well if your droll little Lord Marshal can’t  _ conquer _ them,  _ trade _ with them or something. Three wildly different flavors rolled into one  _ divine _ confection - the whole world will want them. You could name your price.”

Zelda hides her disgust behind her goblet. The wine is cool and crisp and light, one of few blessings the party affords. “Thieves are not interested in honest trade. Nor is Hyrule obsessed with  _ money _ in anything like the fashion of your country, Lady Pelligret.”

“Indeed not,” giggles Euphemia, playing with one of her many strands of pearls. “You spend far too much on playing soldiers for  _ that _ . But when you are older, you will learn to appreciate the delights of  _ mere money _ . We may become women first, but men become  _ old _ first. Even princes and bold strapping knights - it is well for us there are so many of them. And in so many flavors!”

Zelda sighs. “I do not follow how money has anything to do with the inevitable march of time.”

“If you would only put half as much effort into imagination as you do your prayers and books, you would understand at once.” Euphemia casts an appraising look at the secondborn Ordon youth. He is six-and-a-half feet tall, rumored to be as strong as a bull, and about as clever. He wears his Academy uniform proudly, and his coat is adorned with ribbons for his prowess at arms - but not, unfortunately, in any kind of strategy or incendiary weapons.

_ Few Hylians are - even when we engage Holodrun instructors, the foreign students are always filling out the top quarter. We need superior artillery if we are ever to bring this war to a definitive close. _

The Ordon boy notices Euphemia noticing him. He raises his glass in salute with a suggestive grin.

She giggles and plays with her pearls. “I am curious, Princess. In court you are always  _ unfailingly _ polite, but I am absolutely  _ dying _ to know what you _really_ think of that portrait.”

_ Rather you want to know if I find your insipid prince handsome. _ “I think it is unfortunate your court painters are not the equestrians they think your prince is.”

Euphemia giggles, and gestures towards one of the low hedge mazes farther from the shore. “Isn’t it though? He’s a good-looking lad, really, and good enough with horses for his station, but his uncle? Unf - he is six times as handsome, and just old enough to be dignified in his looks. Pity he’s a widower, but if you choose a pretty, hotheaded warrior first, I am sure he will remove himself in some glorious battle or other soon enough to make a connection with our Regent more - hmm - orthodox.”

Zelda accepts her suggestion of a turn about the insipid maze if only to get away from the noise of the floating stage being moored securely and modified for the next entertainment. Most of the other court ladies follow, deeply engaged in their own gossip and not at all interested in rescuing her from the conversation. “We would never wish an early demise on anyone.”

“Oh of course not. I merely speak of practical facts - you must admit young men take themselves off to war in  _ far _ greater numbers than they come back from it.”

Zelda concedes the point and sips at her wine. 

Euphemia leans in with a conspiratorial tone. “I know how conscious you are of introductions and piety, dear Princess. I should be delighted to gather little tidbits for you and arrange for the decorous or - hmm - discreet crossing of paths with any young men who interest you.”

“Perhaps you forget - I am not yet of age, and therefore have no interest whatever in men. Young or otherwise,” murmurs Zelda. She casts a sidelong glance at Impa, but her bodyguard and governess has stationed herself at the main entrance of the little maze, and is not even looking her direction. 

Euphemia snickers and gestures with her own cup of wine. “But of course this is the right and proper demur for your lord father and your Council, but you are among _women_ here, dear Princess. It is not so many years since many of us were your age, you know.”

Zelda hates that she must again concede the point. Euphemia is only five years her senior, and though a few of the ladies triling in the unpleasantly loud group behind them are three and four times a mother, only five are over thirty.

“You see? Your priests may mean well, and be incredibly learned, but they are ignorant in worldly things. There is no shame admitting it among us - you are not so young that you do not think of it. You will be a woman soon enough.”

_ Not if I can help it. _ “I must disappoint you, Lady Pelligret. I have met thousands of men of good character, gently born and humbly, yet I cannot begin to imagine what qualities would interest me in a gentleman, nor what talents and manners would endear him to me.”

“All the more reason to expand your study,” says Euphemia with an indulgent smile. “I understand you are not only fond of archery but excel in the sport.”

“I am not so good at it that I cannot still be better,” demurs Zelda.  _ She surely thinks she is doing me a kindness - I must not lose my temper. Perhaps it is like this for other ladies - I certainly have overheard common girls giggling over dashing knights and handsome artisans. Even the Vohenia girls speak of romance, and the twins are only a month and a half older. Saso is even more obsessed with romantic tales, if not a connection of her own, and she is but nine. _

“It would be convenient then if you should form acquaintance with a young man who shares your interest. But had you prefer one whose skill approaches your own, or a passionate novice who would be ever so grateful for your instruction? There are advantages to both,” muses Euphemia, signaling a servant for more wine.

“I cannot say. I do not train in mixed company.”

“ _ Yet _ ,” says Euphemia with a wink. “All the better reason that someone - or several someones, so that you may form more refined opinions - should be given  _ mysteriously _ ill directions to some garden delight while your shadow is busy elsewhere. I should be happy to fulfill the necessary role of chaperone for as long or as short as you like.”

“My lord father desires that I should marry a man of rank,” says Zelda, scrambling for a way to deflect the woman to some other topic. The ridiculous floating bowling alley will be at least another half hour in building, though the men climbing about on the spars and ropes of the craft are surprisingly industrious.

Euphemia giggles. “Who speaks of marriage? No, it is important that a woman should know something of love  _ long _ before she stands before the gods to attach herself to another house, howsoever agreeable.”

Zelda blushes and fidgets with the silk veil guarding her hand from the inconvenience of touching an object handled by the commonborn. “I was unaware your  _ entire _ country held such  _ liberal _ ideas of virtuous and seemly conduct.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say so earlier, dear Princess? I have been looking for an excuse to invite my dear sister to join us at your winter summits. She is not half so accomplished as yourself, but she is a renowned beauty if I do say so myself.”

Zelda stares in bafflement. 

Euphemia merely giggles, turning her indulgent smiles on the servant with the wine.

“We are always delighted to have cause to extend our friendship with our allies,” stammers Zelda, annoyed at her inconvenient blushing. She does not understand what virtue and sisters have to do with anything, or why Euphemia is laughing at her, and she does  _ not _ want to admit her ignorance. Especially to  _ her _ .

“Indeed, your graciousness is beyond compare,” says Euphemia with a bold, accidentally-on-purpose nudge of her arm. “But even so, it would be good to know if your shadow has seen to your education in practical matters.”

_ Damnit. _ “I’m afraid I do not follow you, Lady Pelligret.”

Euphemia gasps and flutters her hand over her generous décolletage in apparently genuine agitation. “ _ Vento e onda _ \- then there is no time to waste. I should sorrow for  _ any _ young woman finding herself in unexpectedly delicate condition for even a small sip of delight, but the good and gentle Sacred Maiden? Unthinkable. Come - let us leave the others to enjoy the follies of this part of the garden and remove to the shade of that charming grove of river birch for an hour  _ at least _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for more disordered eating and repeating-what-she’s-heard type bigoted opinions.
> 
> Just so you know, the conversation at the end is just for a birds&bees talk.


	32. Thiefborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did you want a dance scene a la early 19th c romance?  
> ༺♡༻  
> Well. You're getting a dance scene.  
> It's plot relevant, I promise.  
> ༺♡༻  
> Also, enormous thanks to everyone who's hung on for this long journey - I am _so_ looking forward to bringing you the conclusion of this accidental epic.

Hiraeth lingers at the edges of the various rooms as usual, watching the early dancing and the children’s games and making polite exchanges of basic civilities with the handful of people he remembers from prior assemblies. Some of the older girls blush and giggle whenever he passes near them - he offers a little bow to the first few, but they all hide behind their fans and whisper. 

Hiraeth returns to pretending not to notice them. He is busy trying to avoid accidents anyway. He is careful, and though he still feels strangely lightheaded and all the lamps are far too bright, somehow has yet to trip on anything - nor even spill wine on himself or anyone else.  _ Fortune will only favor me so long - I dare not tempt her until the evening is over and these fine clothes are safely put away. After all - we have yet to survive dinner-! _

“You absolutely can  _ not _ lurk about like a stormcrow  _ again _ tonight,” groans Myra when she catches him pretending to admire the indifferent landscapes in the hall between the dining room and the main ballroom. “Look at you, hands behind your back like an old man. Ugh-! Come on, you haven’t come out to a party in  _ weeks _ .”

Hiraeth sighs. He does not unfold his hands. It would only invite greater chance of disaster. “I’m  _ fine _ . I merely wanted to study Vah Sandro’s brushwork before dinner. You should be enjoying the dancing with your friends.”

She props one fist on her hip, twitching her full skirts irritably in the other. “Hibi. Don’t be stupid. Kyra and I are taller than  _ literally _ everyone else in the room but you and momma. And-! There aren’t nearly enough boys here that any of them are desperate enough to ask a girl taller than them whom no one else has asked yet.”

“Nonsense. There’s plenty of space to join the ring dances with Saso and-”

“ _ Hibi _ . Ring dances are for  _ babies _ ,” groans Myra. “Until the rest of the academy boys get here it’s just  _ desolate _ .”

“Hn,” says Hiraeth, bowing a little to bring their eyes level. The twins are taller than Julien now, and stand almost to his shoulder even in their flat dancing slippers. “You’re being melodramatic my sweet. I know  _ exactly _ what you are about, and I won’t be persuaded. You know very well it would be a punishment to dance at an assembly such as this, and I am in no humor to-”

“That is not how a gentleman speaks to a lady,” interrupts a stranger from somewhere behind him. 

Myra’s eyes flare wide, and she hides her giggles behind her painted fan in the most insipid manner. 

“Fortunately we are neither of us what you name,” rumbles Hiraeth, turning only enough to find the stranger. A man, of course, but worse, an officer with a slender gilded dress sword on his hip. He wears the madder violet and logwood black of the Terminan Republic, and the thread-of-gold embroidery on the tall collar of his coat and two hands deep on the tails of his wide black sash suggests greater wealth and rank than Hiraeth would have expected at a little neighborhood party.

The fair, towheaded stranger clicks his tongue in censure, meeting his eye boldly. “In civilized countries, one doesn’t insult handsome ladies. You had better dance with her at once to make up for it.”

Hiraeth stands to his full height, looking down his nose at the man. “I detest dancing.  _ Especially _ at a gathering like this. I do not care  _ what _ customs  _ you _ keep, outlander, and no one here invited your opinion on anything.”

The man snorts in amusement. He looks about Hiraeth’s age, but is hardly taller than Link - rare in itself - and he is in no way afraid of an annoyed halfblood giant. “In that case, I will avail myself of the very charms you dismiss. I believe the next set is a running dance if you have the spirit for it, miss.”

“Oh - I  _ do _ love those but-” begins Myra in the most ridiculously coy fashion.

“ _ But _ as you are nobody she is acquainted with, she  _ isn’t _ interested. Go bother someone else,” cuts in Hiraeth, stepping between Myra and the Terminan officer.

“Let the lady speak for herself, rogue. You surrendered your interest in the matter when you refused to stand up with her,” says the man, circling to the right and shifting his attention to Myra. “It is always a pleasure to meet a lady of surpassing grace. Lieutenant Roan Cepolla, at your service m’lady.”

Myra steps around him to blush and curtsey and give her name with affected modesty. 

Hiraeth glares.

Roan ignores him in favor of gallantly flattering Myra.

Hiraeth tries to cut between them again when Roan offers his gloved hand to Myra, but she ducks under his arm to accept anyway. “Hey-! Hands off, outlander. She doesn’t want anything to do with some bloodthirsty, interfering, unprincipled foreign idiot.”

Myra glares.

Roan merely laughs, leading her towards the ballroom. “Oh, I’m pretty sure she  _ literally _ just said she does. Enjoy your trite little common landscapes.  _ We _ have better things to amuse ourselves with, haven’t we, Miss Vohenia?”

To his everlasting annoyance, Myra agrees. And  _ giggles _ .

Hiraeth stands in the hallway, furious.

Kyra and her friend -  _ Mariann? Lisbet? Elenor? _ \- emerge from the dining room as the last bars of the current gigue taper off. They’re both carrying glasses of dangerously purple punch of some kind, gossiping in hushed tones.

“Avha. Set that aside. Now,” growls Hiraeth, gesturing at the hateful cup and stalking to the ballroom door.

“Ugh,  _ hibi _ . I’m  _ not _ going to spill it on you from way over here. It’s  _ fine _ ,” she groans.

“Nevermind that. Just come here,” he snaps. Myra is getting perilously close to the edge of the crowd - mostly parents and elder cousins busily catching up on all the news since the last assembly while the younger set tire themselves out with the fast dances.

“Why? So you too can lecture me about eating a single damn lemon cookie before dinner? How about  _ no _ ,” counters Kyra, urging her friend to follow her the long way to the other ballroom door.

“Kyra Anju Vohenia, I said  _ come here _ .” Hiraeth takes her glass and shoves it at her startled friend. He seizes her hand and stalks toward the ballroom, ignoring the friend’s nasal whine.

“Hibi - what’s going on? I haven’t  _ done _ anything,” whines Kyra, gathering her stupid sprigged skirts in her other hand to match his stride.

“Not you. Myra. Stop dragging your feet - they’re already playing the first chord,” growls Hiraeth. The crowd parts around them - everyone is staring - whispers follow them when he leads her onto the open dance floor. 

“I’m going as fast as I can - I’m not as tall as you-! Why do I have to follow anyway? Myra doesn’t listen to  _ my _ advice, like,  _ ever _ . Light have mercy - why do you have to embarrass  _ me _ too? No one will  _ ever _ let me live it down that  _ I _ interrupted the  _ whole set, _ ” whines Kyra.

“Shut up and stand in the damn line,” snaps Hiraeth, letting go of her hand only when she falls in behind the charming plump girl with roses in her hair. He nods in curt civility to her, and to the unremarkable boy opposite her at the end of the men’s line.

“What’s going on? Myra’s over  _ there _ ,” Kyra hisses, pointing. “Oh - who’s that dashing creature next to her?”

“The  _ problem _ ,” growls Hiraeth. “Which pattern is this one? Three-and-two or five-and-three?”

“Uh,” says Kyra. 

The warning chords give way to a bright arpeggio. The dancers all turn to their partners, bowing and curtsying with artful flourish - half of each line immediately step into a crossing pattern, weaving through the opposite line and back.

Hiraeth follows, absolutely furious. 

When he pivots around Kyra she hisses at him. “What’s going on? What did I miss? Who is he?”

“Cepolla. Terminan. A nobody,” growls Hiraeth. He tries to keep an eye on the outlander, but keeping up with the set demands most of his attention. He cannot even enjoy the music. 

“That’s a lot of gold for a nobody,” says Kyra, peering through the crowd when she lays her hand in his for the five-beat advance-and-bridge. Not that anyone has to really make an effort to dance under  _ their _ hands.

“Cavalry I think. A rake for sure,” he says.

“Hibi, that’s rude.”

“Scoundrel then,” he concedes, pivoting away for the next crossing.

“That’s  _ not _ better. Here - don’t try to go under, they’re too short for us. Just take a knee like I do and they’ll walk past us,” says Kyra.

Hiraeth frowns, following her lead. The girl with the roses giggles and smiles at him as she sweeps past him, barely able to catch her partner’s fingertips. “Damnit now we’re off the beat.”

“It’ll be fine - you’re doing  _ amazing _ . Have you been practicing with Julien? On two, add a skip.”

“No, but I probably  _ should _ if you implings are going to be simpering at no-account strangers for spite,” he grumbles.

Kyra frowns, saying nothing for several bars. They dance, and watch Myra dance and flirt with Roan, and move up the set with excruciating slowness. 

“At this pace, the piece will be half over by the time we catch up,” growls Hiraeth. “You shouldn’t have argued with me. We’d have been within twenty feet by now if you hadn’t fussed.”

“Hibi, I’m glad you’re actually taking part for once, but  _ this? _ Is  _ stupid _ . Why are you angry? Dancing is kindof the  _ point _ . I mean, aside from the recitals later.”

“I’m not angry. I’m  _ furious _ that this  _ damn _ libertine dares to steal her right in front of me,” snaps Hiraeth.

“And how do  _ you _ know he’s wicked, hm? He looks like a perfect gentleman to me. It’s  _ just _ a  _ dance _ ,” says Kyra, rolling her eyes at him. “Look, she’s smiling and laughing with him. They’re having fun. Don’t be a stick in the mud.”

“Have you willfully forgotten every lesson you ever learned? The more perfect the appearance of gentility the more rotten the core. And she is  _ encouraging _ it! Next he will give her a  _ bloody _ rose and she will follow him into—”

“You’re being unfair. You don’t even  _ know _ him,” groans Kyra, pivoting away through the next crossing. 

“Neither does she,” growls Hiraeth as they pass in the weave. 

He offers his hand to the girl with the roses, escorting her through the first rondel. She blushes and trembles and whispers some wholly fabricated compliment to his dancing. He offers her a polite smile, apologizes in advance for any damage to the hem of her cheerful yellow gown, and returns his attention to counting steps and watching Myra deliberately ignore his glare to flirt with the Terminan.

The awkward but vaguely familiar young woman he is to escort through the second rondel trips on her  _ own _ hem the moment she sees him. He manages -  _ somehow!  _ \- to catch her, but cannot help a snort of amusement. He leads her into the pattern, bowing to rumble in her ear: “If you should like to shift the blame to your last partner - or even your present one - I’m  _ reasonably _ certain I can manage to tread on those charming ruffles just enough to support the tale.”

She blushes and demurs, but  _ also _ giggles. She says something polite about being honored with a rare dance, and compliments his fine coat.

He returns the compliment for the blackwork embroidery on her dress -  _ almost certainly her own design _ \- and adds something forgettable about the novelty of managing to not yet fall on his nose or anyone else’s, watching Myra whirl out of the third rondel and all too conveniently tangle up with the Terminan.

The girl at his side laughs, suggesting he ought perhaps to practice dancing more often - and then they are entering the third rondel and the next woman is the young, generously built wife of the luthier two houses down. 

She also giggles when she sees him, catching at his arm and contriving to -  _ unwisely-! _ \- lean against him through the first few beats instead of taking his hand. She is from Ordon, and  _ very _ tall for a Hylian. Rumor says she has thief blood two generations back, though her complexion is only slightly tawny and her hair is a warm strawberry blonde. She is entirely too enthusiastic about his dancing, and pesters him with questions about  _ everything _ . The difficulty of the carriage ride. Who made his fine coat. The menu for the banquet. If he will be performing later. The probability of rain.

Managing to survive the rondel with  _ her _ demands all of his attention.

“I have news,” says Kyra breathlessly when they meet for the wide circuit.

“She’s regained possession of her reason and left the line? I do not see her,” grumps Hiraeth, anchoring himself as best he can to serve as the axis for her.

“Don’t be stupid. Stepping out of the set would be a  _ dreadful _ scandal,” she counters, twirling around him. Her jewelry and the beaded ribbons on her dress glitter cheerfully, and a telltale chime of bells betrays that she’s wearing desert-made baubles too. “He may be from Termina, but  _ he’s _ one of the  _ Academy _ boys. Top of his class too—!”

Hiraeth grunts, stepping forward.  _ Two more circuits and  _ **_I_ ** _ shall have to spin. Oh if there are any little gods listening, let me get through this pattern without falling and crushing anybody.  _ “So he’s  _ good _ at being a bloodthirsty cretin. That changes nothing. Don’t tell me you too are following Saso into obsession with the glamour of uniforms and the drama of swordsmen.”

“Never,” says Kyra with a mou of disgust. “But Lieutenant Hanin says he’s not so much a fighter as a tactician. You’re right about cavalry - has a reputation at the Academy for being crazy good with the difficult horses. But he’s not nobility - Rozal says he’s from farm people.  _ Rich _ farm people probably, to pay foreigner’s rates at the Royal Academy. Summer-born, eighteen, graduates this spring and a commission waiting for him in the Republican Provincial Guard.”

“Don’t care,” says Hiraeth, suddenly glad their height allows them to measure the ‘running’ turn as more of a brisk stride than the perilous trot most people need.

“So he didn’t seek a formal introduction, so what. We can learn a hundred more useful things about him in ten minutes from other people than we’d gather from how well he recites the usual civilities,” counters Kyra. “The last stretch is the hardest for us. It’s supposed to be alternating bridge-and-tunnel. It will be too fast for kneeling. The children will  _ obviously _ exchange bridge for gate when we pass them, but in class Myra and I have this - sliding thing we do for the tunnel pattern. We don’t bother to practice that at home because  _ obviously _ you and mom are tall enough, and Ishi and Saso  _ aren’t _ . I don’t know if everybody will be smart enough to use the gate pattern for us - we need a plan before we get there.”

“I do not  _ care _ to know more about Cepolla, and neither should you. He is an unscrupulous rogue and the only thing we want from the likes of him is to see him  _ leaving _ ,” growls Hiraeth, pivoting left as she twirls in from the right to take his place in the axis line. 

“ _ Hibi _ , be reasonable. What makes Lieutenant Roan Cepolla any different from a hundred other lieutenants and cadets or anyone else?”

“A hundred other idiot soldiers didn’t dare to interrupt a private conversation to lure  _ our sister _ away for his own crooked amusement,” returns Hiraeth, too angry about losing sight of Myra to take any pleasure in his success managing the first circuit without incident.

“It’s  _ just _ a dance, it doesn’t signify  _ anything _ on its own. For the love of Light hibi, how do you  _ think _ courtship works? Not everyone has momma’s luck, nor does everyone  _ else _ settle with someone they’ve known all their life. People have to start  _ somewhere _ .” Kyra fidgets with her skirts as she advances through the set. “Now focus on the  _ real _ problem, yeah? Bridge-and-tunnel pattern?”

“They will move or they will all tumble down with us,” says Hiraeth, noticing to his dismay that the people watching the dancing are mostly staring at  _ him _ . Waiting for him to make a mistake. Eager to gawk at whatever clumsy accident he ruins things with. “It’s not  _ just _ a formality - and if word spreads that  _ none of us _ were previously acquainted with Cepolla, it will be far more of a scandal than interrupting a dance. It is one thing for a willful  _ Hylian _ girl to flirt openly with some random Academy idiot, but  _ we _ must be better  _ them _ . Always. In every circumstance. Any misstep or indiscretion from  _ us _ only confirms their expectation that blood will out.”

“Oh,” says Kyra, chagrined.  _ Finally _ . 

“There - claret speckled feathers. That must be her. How is she still ten couples away? Running dances are supposed to fold everyone past everyone,” says Hiraeth, pivoting with a twirl of his long, full coat to take her hand again.

“Usually, but it’s not hard to make arrangements with the couples one passes if one wants to move one’s place in the set. Okay hibi, I hope you’re right about everyone changing the pattern for us,” says Kyra as they approach the final line down the center of the room.

“I am always right,” says Hiraeth, keeping his back straight and focus forward. The couple ahead of them immediately drops hands to let them through, and the next barely even need to bow to let them pass their own hands overhead. 

The girl in the third set exclaims in shrill surprise, dropping her partner’s hand as if burned.  _ They _ do not pivot, but soon enough it doesn’t matter, for the fourth couple is a pair of giggling schoolchildren hardly even Ishi’s age. They clutch at each other, wide-eyed, dancing forgotten, but at least they’re standing in the right place.

The fifth couple doesn’t pivot either, dropping hands to let them pass but otherwise remaining in place. The sixth forgets they are supposed to move to center for tunnel, and pivot as for the gate pattern. It throws off the entire line, and Hiraeth cannot tell which way anybody will move until they are almost on top of another pair. 

Kyra is muttering prayers under her breath before they’re even halfway.

They reach the end of the line without ever meeting Myra and the Cepolla boy - and abruptly the musicians slide through an arpeggio to ring out the final paired chords. It does not seem like the music should be over yet with a dozen couples still working their way down the line behind them, but Hiraeth was not really listening to the piece and decides the unsettled feeling likely has more to do with misplacing his quarry and being immediately deafened by the applause roaring through the room. 

“This is completely stupid,” grumps Hiraeth under his breath.  _ I am taller than anyone, so why can I not find her? _

Kyra leans against his arm, a little breathless both from the dancing and from a sudden fit of giggles.

“Me next, me next-!” Leela cries, dashing through the crowd to attach herself to his leg like a ribbon-bedecked morth.

“Another time, sweetling. Let go. No really,  _ off _ . Are your ears full of wool avha?” Hiraeth sighs, trying unsuccessfully to pry her arms from about his knee.

“Ohhhmy _ gods _ hibi that coat is  _ perfect _ for dancing,” swoons Saso, hands clasped beside her cheek like a stage player. “If only you could  _ see _ how it twirls. You should dress like this  _ all _ the time. You’d have ladies fainting right there in the market square from the  _ elegance _ of it.”

Hiraeth rolls his eyes at her.

“Me next me next me next,” cries Leela, pausing only to draw breath for the next string of demands.

The cabinet-maker who lives at the corner of their street by the temple cut through the press to offer his hand. Hiraeth accepts in confusion - they have met many times, and do not need an introduction. He misses the first part of his address under Leela’s noise. He catches something about wagers and five hundred rupee and is on the point of asking him to repeat himself when his father lays a hand on the man’s arm and moves him aside. 

Link’s eyes are incredibly blue in the ballroom lighting, and the gold tone of the lamps softens the scars on the right side of his face. But not even gray velvet and perfect civilities can soften the way he  _ moves _ , and Hiraeth is suddenly put in mind of a wolf. Not that he’s ever  _ seen _ a living wolf, so perhaps it is that Link moves like the  _ idea _ of a wolf. 

_ Or - strange thought - the way I imagine wolves might be shaped by watching  _ **_him_ ** _. _ “Can you help me with the impling? I was hoping to find Myra-”

“I’ve never seen you dance like that. Beautifully done,” says Link. His lips twitch like he’s trying to remember how to smile. “You must be helping the girls practice, hm?”

Kyra snorts, remembering too late that she is in company. “Hardly  _ ever _ , baba. Always it is work this and duty that. He never has time for  _ us _ anymore.”

“Hn,” says Link with a sour-apple grin. “Happily, your brother is already excused from  _ both _ of those things until morning. He is at leisure to dance  _ all night. _ ”

“Father,  _ please _ . I was only-” begins Hiraeth, scrambling to anticipate why he is angry this time.

“Me next, my turn!  **Me next** ME NEXT HIBI  **ME NEXT-!** ” Leela shrieks.

“Light have mercy hibi, that went _completely_ perfect and I absolutely hate you,” says Myra breathlessly, sneaking up behind him, dragging Lieutenant Roan Cepolla behind _her_. She is still holding his hand, and they are both flushed from dancing and sneaking about like honorless bandits. “You stole everyone’s attention _so_ _completely_ that Elenor didn't even _see_ me in the set, and nevermind William or Geralt. Kyra, you _have_ to trade me places for the next or I will dump ink in your work-basket, see if I don’t.”

Hiraeth lays his hand on Kyra’s shoulder. “Your sister cultivates the discernment you willfully neglect, and has no interest in bestowing mannerless strangers with undeserved attentions.”

“Absolutely  _ shocking _ that every lady above the age of six should  _ miraculously _ lose her voice and independence of will when you stand next to her,” says Roan with a sardonic grin and a significant glance at Leela, who is  _ still _ shrieking. 

“Or perhaps the man who cuts the most dramatic figure in the  _ whole room _ is selectively  _ deaf _ ,” snaps Myra. 

“Don’t be a stick-in-the-mud hibi,” hisses Saso, tugging at his coat. “ _ Kyra _ has to dance with him next so Ishi can dance the one after so he can ask  _ me _ after that. He’s so  _ pretty _ it’s not  _ even _ fair.”

“No!  **Me** next,  **my** turn! I asked him  _ first _ ,” shrieks Leela, winding her little arms so tight it hurts.

“Avha, sweetling, hush. You are not big enough for this kind of dancing yet,” says Hiraeth in desperation, glaring at Saso.

“In the name of peace,  _ I _ will decide who dances with whom,” says Link, bowing to pry Leela from Hiraeth’s knee. He ignores her objections, seating her on his shoulder - which  _ finally _ makes her pause in confusion, for now she is high enough to be nearly even with Hiraeth.

Roan bows to Link with some inane civility, giving his name.

Myra belatedly introduces her family to him - including her mother, who has finally cut through the crowd with Ishi beside her, glaring at all of them.

“Myra will dance with our esteemed neighbor,” says Link, gesturing to the cabinet-maker who is still lingering close by, amused at all the world. “Kyra will dance with that boy in the pale blue coat-”

“Ugh  _ baba _ that’s  _ Geralt _ . Myra likes him, not  _ me _ ,” whines Kyra.

“ _ Ishi _ will dance with Roan,” continues Link. “Saso will dance with your mother, and your brother will dance with the most elegant lady in the room. Give him your hand, Leela.”

“Wait, what-?” Hiraeth lets go of Kyra as she stomps over to the Geralt-boy-in-blue to convey their father’s edict. “Has everyone lost their bloody mind but me?”

“Hn. Or found it,” says Link, grasping his wrist and making him take Leela’s hand.

She crows with delight at her victory.

The musicians strike a warning chord. 

Lieutenant Roan Cepolla offers a full courtly bow to Ishi, inventing some wild flattery to charm a thirteen-year-old imp of pure mischief.

Link turns towards the center of the ballroom where several couples are already lining up. Some children, some not. All of them turn to stare and giggle and whisper behind their hands when they notice Hiraeth and his new dance partners. 

“Father, this is  _ the _ most ridiculous folly - you don’t  _ dance _ ,” growls Hiraeth. He glances over his shoulder. To his dismay, all of the others are doing exactly as Link ordered, even their neighbor who is not beholden to anybody.

“Neither do you,” says Link cheerfully. He carries Leela with ease, neither stooping nor slowing his step - though this is no great surprise to Hiraeth, it makes absolutely  _ everyone else _ whisper about it as they pass. “Fortunately you need not dance with  _ me _ , but this fancy young lady who happens to be a master of the art. Follow her lead, and all will be well. Do remember not to step on his toes Leela, for you are a very fine lady and everyone is excited to see how well you dance.”

Leela giggles, kissing her hand to their audience. Which is swiftly becoming  _ everybody _ , as rumor spreads to the other rooms that the clumsy, thiefblooded, bastard-born giant is going to make a fool of himself  _ twice _ in half an hour. 

“Gods and spirits preserve us all,” mutters Hiraeth in despair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points if you recognized the Academy boy. -`ღ´-


	33. Hazards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings at the end...

Among the charms to recommend evening parties is the ease with which one may get drunk without one’s condition being at all remarkable. More than half the guests already avail themselves of this very delight, and the second round of bombachu hazards has hardly begun.

Zelda stands among the women of the Labrynnan envoy, trying to decide if she likes cherry cordial or not. Euphemia has promised there are more kinds of cordial in the world than there are even natural fruits, and assures her that if she does not like one, there is surely another she will enjoy better. 

Impa stands at the edge of the crowd, glaring in disapproval, but she does not force her way through to Zelda’s side. 

_ This is all her fault anyway. Why should I be learning anything from a dissolute foreigner anyway? Blessed Light, I think I shall never look on a lemon the same way again. _

A cheer rises among the men - the next set of target boards is ready, the luminous point markings seeming to flicker in the torchlight. Several of the women are wagering on who will make the best show, and who will collect the highest score, and if any of the men on the target barges will have to leap into the lake to save their own skin as the wind picks up and rocks the floating alleys in spite of the many ropes and cables. 

Zelda is surprised that many wager against their own husbands. She is even more surprised when some of the Holodrun ladies join them and lay wagers against their own side. The whole folly is  _ supposed _ to be an opportunity for the Holodrun to advance their own excellence in their native game - to which challenge the Labrynnans naturally responded with the superiority of their own variants. The Goron predictably boasted that no one is better with explosives than themselves.

Hyrule is supposed to be the neutral party to judge the others’ claims - but few of the peerage could resist the opportunity to show off. 

“It is still a ridiculous waste of time,” says Zelda to Euphemia. She is still a vulgar gossip, and Zelda still isn’t  _ fond _ of her company and conversation, but with only the most roundabout hint, Lady Ordona confirmed the reason for lemons and fenugreek being a traditional gift to the bride from her friends, where her family gives her royal jelly and sweet saffron milk instead, proving the Lady Pelligret does in fact know whereof she speaks. “No one sane would use bombachu automatons on a real battlefield. The drive mechanism is far too unstable and the bombflower paste too volatile.”

“Dear sweet Princess - you will soon learn that men are not, on the whole, sane. Bombachu are a favored tactic for contested ground these days,” said one of the Holodrun ladies airly. “That very fact is at the root of my own father’s fortune.”

“Even we import tons of the beastly things. My dear Marten assures me there’s no more effective tool for shattering a blockade,” agrees Euphemia.

“But the risk to your own ships,” begins Zelda. She is cut off by an explosion - otherwise unremarkable given the nature of the entertainments - except this is much louder than the others, and shatters the target board rather than blackening it. 

The men yell at one another and halt the game, accusing the servants of constructing inferior targets. Lord Elapidan accuses everyone of making an attempt on his life, mixing WarMice in with hazard-grade automatons.

Every faction sends one of their own servants to assist the bargemen and check both targets and bombachu for interference - and observe the alleys as the game resumes. It is funny to watch them try to climb about on the wet barges in all their fine clothes. Predictably, the young secretary in Labrynnan blues is the first man elected to go aloft.

“ _ Happily _ we enjoy peace in  _ our _ harbors these five years, making such concerns unnecessary,” says one of the other Labrynnan ladies, fluttering her lace fan at the foppish and fashionable Sir d’Oro. Probably to annoy him - although he is a notorious philanderer and will happily chase anything in a skirt, when he sees  _ her _ flirting, his vapid smile becomes a sneer and he turns away.

_ Whatever enmity they have is no concern of ours, _ Zelda reminds herself, trading the cherry cordial for peach. “You have many ships?”

“We own controlling interest in ten sciabecco, twenty-seven bracera, and run three charming little sloops for ourselves,” she preens.

“What’s it like, sailing? Do you go on the water often?” Zelda asks, struggling to remember the woman’s name. She is married to the man with the lisp, but suddenly she cannot remember  _ his _ name either. Not that it matters. They are none of them as important as Pelligret-the-ambassador and his idiot friend d’Oro.

“I travel with my Charles almost everywhere,” she says with a smile, turning away from watching the men. “I do not climb in the shrouds -  _ yet _ \- but I daresay I  _ am _ fair hand with the knots and-”

“I bet you are,” sniggers one of the Holodrun ladies.

“Sailing is not so romantic,” says an older lady, shaking her head. “My father taught me and all my sibs to handle our caicco when I was young, so we would know how to survive if we ever needed it. The first real tempest you face? You will  _ never _ forget.”

Zelda listens in horror to tales of storms and landshakes and her glass is empty without having paid any attention to the flavor at all. Euphemia gives her another with something dark that is supposed to be blackcurrant but mostly tastes like sharp. Not that this makes any real sense, but it the only word she can find for the strangely compelling cordial.

The roar and rumble of the bombachu hazards doubles, and then the men are whooping and cheering like common schoolchildren. Another hogshead of wine is tapped for them, and porters are bringing crates from a closed barge farther down the shore.

Zelda frowns, trying to understand why there seems to be a yellow-green light coming from  _ inside _ the crates. “More targets?”

“ _ Hazards _ ,” giggles one of the Holodrun ladies. “There’s a five-way tie for third place, and two men tied for first. If setting the middle boards asway doesn’t shake them up, a few chu loose on the lanes  _ certainly _ will.”

“Wait - there’s  _ living _ chu in those boxes?” Zelda feels strange and queasy to think of it.  _ Creatures of darkness loose on the castle grounds! Gelatinous parasites that replicate faster than horseflies - and father shipped them in  _ **_on purpose_ ** _?  _

“Well,” says Lady Ordon, gesturing with a perilously full glass of twice-fermented Rostlyn wine. “It wouldn’t be any fun if it’s just steering the bombachu around blobs of jelly smeared about the boards now would it?”

“Goddess bright those are  _ sparkchu _ ,” cries Euphemia, aghast.

She’s right - when the porters pry the lid off the first crate, a chaotic discharge flares and knocks one of them several yards back, dazed. The light in the crate dims - the porters reach strange flared poles into the crate and scoop up the mindless blights one after the other, flinging them onto the floating hazard alleys. One of them shouts for the others to pull back - a breath later another wild discharge flares from the open crate.

“It is well the bombachu are guarded by good ceramic casings,” says Zelda tentatively, trying to calm herself with a fresh glass of stingroot-laced cordial.

Euphemia shakes her head. “Forgive me, dear Princess, but sparkchu can  _ absolutely _ activate the charges early through the wheel housings and fuse-vent. It’s not just steering clear of the creature itself - it’s a dangerous challenge when they’re only loose between the fifth and sixth board and nevermind the whole alley. This -  _ vento e onda _ \- people get  _ killed _ playing thunderchu!”

The Holodrun ladies snicker. “The words of a  _ coward _ from a coward’s country. You’re just sore you’re going to  _ lose _ .”

“Oh no - this is a  _ very bad idea _ ,” murmurs Zelda, transfixed by the sight of Lord Elapidan handing his wineglass to Earl Hebron, his steps weaving as he collects his chu from the footman.

“Nonsense,” says Lady Hebron from somewhere behind her. “My son is going to clear these amateurs in three charges when the round comes to him, and all of these foreign flowers will soon be emptying their purses in our favor, your Highness.”

_ How did she get so close without me noticing? _ “We would never wish to see our friends hurt for sake of a mere  _ game _ . Go, tell my lord father that I desire no more of these  _ things _ should be allowed loose.”

Lady Hebron sniffs in offense, but curtseys, and obeys. 

Zelda knows it is impossibly rude to task one of the most powerful women in the country with a servant’s chore, but she does not like the way the words slithered in her mind. “That boy is going to fall. But how will they get off the boat with sparkchu loose? They float!”

Euphemia follows her eye to the closer floating alley, laughing nervously. “Oh that secretary, feh! He’ll be fine. He’s mostly clumsy in his spelling. He’s a fiend for hazards - I hear he empties his pockets at the gamehouses every time he draws his little salary.”

“How can that matter? He is not  _ playing _ \-  _ oh _ that was so close!” Torchlight and phosphorescent target circles reflect off the rising smoke. Muffled cries rise from the bargemen clinging desperately to the nets and ropes of the floating alleys. The chu that ignited the charge is nothing but a glistening smear on the boards, and the porters are already preparing to fish out another.

One of the other women takes her glass away and gives her another. “She  _ means _ he knows when to jump. Handsome boy, isn’t he? If my husband were a  _ teensy _ bit less jealous? Unf. Goddess grant someone invite him on a hunting trip while d’Oro is in town,  _ please _ .”

Zelda frowns in confusion. She tries to remember the secretary’s face. “I think he’s rather odd-looking. His ears are rather overlarge I should think. And his earloops are so  _ gaudy _ , especially as he’s common and not even a  _ soldier _ let alone a swordsm-”

“In our country such adornments are less - hm - exclusive. And his proportions may not be precisely  _ aesthetic _ , but function outranks form,” says Euphemia with a coy grin. 

Most of the others giggle.

Zelda drinks an unidentifiable cordial to hide her embarrassment at not understanding their joke in the slightest.

The noise of the hazard players rises - they are not laughing now, but arguing. The porters are standing idle beside the crates, listening, leaning on their poles. The King is lounging in his chair under the open pavilion, leaning on his fist, listening also. One sparkchu wanders the boards of the closer alley, three meander about the farther one and soon become four.

The King says something.

Arguing becomes laughing.

More wine flows. More padded crates of bombachu are brought. 

Zelda drags her attention back to the gossip around her. Euphemia is talking about her modiste, and the woman with the fleet of ships is complaining about the difficulty of dealing with artisans. Something about marquetry done backwards, and a dispute over a bill. Someone commiserates, and the older woman who knows how to sail her own boat chides them, saying they should not blame poor men for needing to pay the butcher and the miller, but the stubbornness of tight-fisted, old-fashioned bankers.

“Oh yes, banks are a  _ terrible _ invention,” agrees Zelda. 

Euphemia giggles. “Useful at times, but  _ no _ appreciation of aesthetics.”

The other ladies roar with laughter at the circuit of their joke.

Zelda  _ almost _ misses the startled cry of a terrified cucco under their noise. She turns. A few telltale white feathers drift in the torchlight near the hazard barges. She shoves her glass into someone else’s hands so she can wind her skirts in her fists and  _ run _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for 'splosions, roundabout discussions of birth control and basic sex ed, copious underage drinking (cordials are served in small glasses For A Reason which Zelda is soon to discover), blatant classism, sexism, affluenza, innuendo, chu-killing, and threatened cruelty to a chicken.
> 
> The lemon reference is a historical form of rudimentary birth control from the memoirs of Casanova! Fenugreek is thought to be an aphrodisiac though. 
> 
> It is highly likely Euphemia also told Zelda that condoms exist. 
> 
> Conversely, royal jelly, saffron, and sweet milk are all thought to encourage fertility.


	34. Amusements

When one is possessed of five headstrong sisters, it is never just  _ one _ of anything. Hiraeth dances set after set with each of the girls, though Saso also needs Link’s help to take his hand without obliging him to stoop the whole time. She decides it is a fabulous game, being taller than him, even if it  _ is _ only by artifice.

No one seems in the least way surprised that Link is able to carry  _ her _ about on his shoulders as easily as he carried Leela, nor does anyone comment on his sudden perfection in dancing. Hiraeth asks in exasperation after the second turn with Leela - thankfully, this one is a stately pavane - how he manages so well without ever once practicing.

“Hn,” says Link, with a sour-apple smile. “In the desert, the warriors of the golden legions train in sword-courts painted with a vast eight-petaled flower, and call it  _ ka’cyrtia _ . Dancing.”

“Oh,” says Hiraeth, sealing the words away for his tiny storehouse of things he knows of his mother’s people.

Link glances up at him, blue eyes bright, and snorts in amusement. “Truly, it is nothing. Reading the patterns of how these people will move in time to match them is not so different from war.”

Hiraeth does not have any time or peace to reflect on it, for once Myra finally has her wish of dancing at his side, his stepmother demands the next. Mostly so she can scold him in the semi-privacy of the turns. Hiraeth wonders more than once if in fact he’s managed to get himself drunk and has fallen asleep on one of the hall couches to dream up the whole fiasco. 

“Two and a half years I invest every effort in arranging introductions for you, and  _ now _ you dance. Of all nights, you must choose an assembly with not  _ one _ suitable young woman present who is not already engaged-! Did the gods weave you on purpose to vex me, or is this a mischief of your own infernal invention?” Jolene smiles at everyone, but her green-gold eyes blaze with fury.

“I had no intention of dancing  _ tonight _ either,” confesses Hiraeth. “I came in the room with no other purpose but to thwart that conniving outland Cepolla boy.”

“Don’t play stupid, my son. He’s as much man as you, and with such high Academy rank maybe even more for all he’s a half-sized runt. I don’t like the idea of some Terminan coward for a son either, but a well-heeled Lieutenant would make a respectable match for either of the twins.”

“For love of Light momma, they’re  _ fifteen _ .” Hiraeth groans.

“Only for another fortnight. And you  _ will _ be at their birthday party or so help me I will drag you from the Ministry offices by your ear, see if I don’t.”

“Yes momma, I will try.”

“There is no  _ try _ ,” snaps his stepmother. “You  _ will _ do it, you  _ will _ wear this extravagant coat and kurta nonsense again, and  _ this _ time you  _ will _ dance with every eligible young woman I can beg, borrow, and steal for the guest list.”

Hiraeth sighs. “It is a minor miracle I have not tripped and crushed anyone yet, and you want me to tempt fortune  _ again-? _ ”

“Then I will light  _ another _ dozen candles  _ every _ Lightsday until by the grace of the Old Ones you fall on your stubborn nose and into the arms of a lady of quality,” sniffs Jolene.

Hiraeth sighs, and surrenders the field. There is no diverting her when she has her teeth set on a purpose, howsoever ridiculous. He does not waste his breath objecting when she promises he will dance with at least another three matrons and six engaged maidens before nadir - no doubt in some vain hope of his nonexistent charms stealing one of the maidens. She fills her dance card with  _ his _ promised engagements, and cheerfully joins the gossips to make sure the tale of his folly is spun to their advantage.

He is exhausted by the time they take their place at the long tables for feasting. To his dismay, Lieutenant Roan Cepolla sits down with them, stealing his place beside Kyra at his father’s left hand, directly across from Myra. Hiraeth glares, but Roan is busy entertaining Link with some ridiculous boast about an elaborate prank he orchestrated on one of his instructors last spring. 

Link snickers at the tale, and all the girls buzz with delight. Every last one of them ignore his simmering fury. The drone of gossip rises to nearly a roar as his whole damned family takes leave of their reason to impress this interloping stranger.

“Convenient that none of your commanders should be present to hear your confessions,” rumbles Hiraeth, toying with his glass of white honeyed wine as Roan winds up  _ another _ wild story. 

“Rather, it is  _ convenient _ that the joke is finished and the inquiry into the whereabouts of the missing fireflower pollen is closed. Once settled, the matter cannot be reopened, no matter what someone may overhear from an an off-duty outlander.” Roan answers his glare with cheerful tone and a winning smile.

“But have you  _ really _ snuck into the Council of Peers, or did you just help an  _ actual _ Hylian do it?” Ishi leans on the table to shout over the roar of conversation in the dining room.

Jolene glares at Ishi for her coarse manners. Roan laughs. Link props his elbows on the table to the annoyance of his wife and laces his fingers together under his chin. His expression reveals nothing of his thoughts, but he is  _ listening _ to the boy and  _ not _ turning him away, and that is bad enough as it is.

“Not only that, but when I was your size I snuck into the very castle,” says Roan with a conspiratorial wink. 

“No! You’re making that up,” cries Saso in scandalized tones.

“I will prove it. Ask me anything,” says Roan, meeting Hiraeth’s eye with a smug grin. He sips his dark punch with complete disregard for the risk to his fine coat. 

“Hmm,” muses Kyra. “If you were  _ her _ size then, and father’s size  _ now _ , then you would have been - nine?”

“Eleven,” corrects Roan.

“Eight years ago,” says Myra, leaning on her fist and pulling her lip between her teeth in thought. “That’s the last time anyone saw a Rito, I think.”

“Indeed m’lady, and I just happened by good fortune to be among the august company to see them,” said Roan smoothly. 

“I wouldn’t call lurking in a nearby sewer pipe  _ fortune _ or  _ among _ ,” sneers Hiraeth.

“Nor I,” concedes Roan. “Happily my circumstances led to early acquaintance with a castle page, and on my second visit taking his place I overheard plans being laid for a state feast. Naturally, I immediately arranged to be assigned to this pleasurable duty.”

“How exciting-! Did you get to see the bird-people up close? Are their feathers shiny or fluffy?” Ishi demands.

Roan coughs. “It is unkind to repeat slurs. The Rito are simply _people_ , howsoever different they may appear from you or I. The golden ones blessed them with as much variety in their beauty as any people, and their warriors are swift and sure, justly proud of their skill. Long ago, their cities traded across the whole world, but the northern roosts have pulled back beyond the vast tundra, allowing neither human nor Zora nor Goron past the foothills of the Knifewall mountains these _four_ _hundred_ years.”

Hiraeth sets his wine aside, glancing at his father.  _ Except for you. _

Link meets his eye and hitches one shoulder in cavalier affirmation, as if he has heard the thought.

_ Why? _

Link’s eyes crinkle in mischief. As if he’s heard  _ that _ too. His lips curl in a subtle sour-apple smile, and he returns his attention to Roan’s story.

Hiraeth cannot haul  _ his _ focus back to Roan’s rambling tale, divided as he is by anger and the burning need to  _ know _ about the secrets Link hides behind his blue eyes. All his life he’s wondered about the silences, but with every crumb that falls, his hunger increases. He cannot soothe it with the old platitude that it’s just some abstract history from far away anymore. He has the mad impression that the past has come to stand behind Link’s chair, a fathomless red-eyed, sharp-toothed shadow wearing shimmering lacework lightning like a nobleman’s cape. He sees in it all the menace of the shadow alchemy in Hebron’s books and Necluda’s rapacious perfidy, the blood and greed of the endless petty feuds and border raids and provincial rebellions that together weave a war, the double-edged blade of his own fury and the necessary lies that shroud his work, his studies, even his thoughts and affections. 

Hiraeth reaches for his wine again, but cannot force himself to drink it. He feels ill and dizzy and stupid and drunk. He wants to leave the table and find a dark corner to compose himself. He dares not make the attempt and risk an accident in front of this stranger, this foreigner, this agreeable and handsome Lieutenant who is seducing his entire family into adoring him.

_ He is everything I should have been. Beautiful and admired and accomplished and graceful and charming. I hate him. _

“The quill  _ is _ mightier than the sword,” says Link, his quiet words interrupting the shrill effervescent enthusiasm of his daughters for every stupid detail of Roan’s probably-fictional adventure at a diplomatic feast.

“Exactly so,” agrees Roan. “The trade accord with the Rito was a dear wish of your Queen, Light Remember her, and some thirty years in weaving. Hard red spring wheat for Hylian tables, and kitten-soft sable for Hylian cloaks. Freezestone from the Knifewall mines and rich Totori salmon packed in ice so cold it can be sent in barrels all the way to Ordon and beyond without salting or smoking or pickling.”

“But what did  _ we _ offer  _ them _ ?” Kyra presses, dinner forgotten. 

Roan sucks air through his teeth and glances at Link. 

Who shakes his head, ever so little. No more than two degrees. So subtle everyone else misses it. 

“Music,” says Roan with a dazzling smile. 

All of the girls laugh.

_ What are you not saying? How did you know to read the silence of a stranger, and what are you both conspiring to keep off the table? What did the Rito want and why is it a secret? _ Hiraeth toys with his wineglass, watching Roan for every smallest crack in his performance.

“Seriously though,” says Myra. “Hyrule is not a rich country like Holodrum. What did they  _ really _ want so much, and why would they give up something that valuable over a stupid dinner party?”

“Art is always  _ crazy _ valuable,” says Ishi with a dramatic eyeroll. “The best Castletown luthiers get chests of rupee from all over the world, and every rich person from Labrynna to Castor and Exolla wants a clavichord. Why else do you think our neighbor took three more stupid apprentices? Nobody wants an ugly cabinet for a three thousand rupee instrument, and marquetry takes  _ forever _ .”

“Miss Ishi is correct as always,” says Roan. “The Rito are passionate musicians, especially fond of string and bellows instruments - and they collect songs like a squirrel hoards acorns. But the disaster of that feast was far greater that you credit, Miss Vohenia, and truly begins some seventeen years ago at the royal engagement feast, when the Totori roost sent preserved chickaloo cakes to your Queen as a bridal gift.”

“But what’s scandalous about that? I mean, you either like chickaloos or you’re wrong,” says Saso.

“You might say those cakes were  _ seeded _ with poison,” says Link, unfolding his hands to pour himself another glass of honeyed wine. 

Gasps of horror ripple down the table.

“Don’t be teasing the girls like that, husband. There was  _ no _ poison at the bridal feast, and  _ none _ eight years ago. Only the  _ accusation _ of it when a filthy traitor at the one, and at the latter, His Majesty himself fainted from them,” groans Jolene.

“Yet that was enough for instant chaos. I had barely got into position to liberate a few butter cakes from the servingboard when your King leapt up from the throne, red as your son’s fine shirt and shouting about murder and conspiracy and traitors,” says Roan, gesturing at Hiraeth with his glass. “Accused the Rito ambassador by name too, right before he collapsed.”

“Wager that ruffled a few feathers,” says Link, tearing a piece of bread in thirds.

“It did at that,” agrees Roan. “Vah Impa kicked the table over - food and wine and silver dishes scattered  _ everywhere _ . She swept the little princess into her arms and vanished into the crowd as the royal guard poured in from every direction. Swords were drawn, priests and arbiters were called for before the King’s guard even had him carried out of the hall. The doors were barred at once - no one could leave, noble or servant. The royal knights ordered everyone against the walls, knocking down and… ah… chaining anyone who dared resist.”

Leela wriggles in her chair, playing with her forks. “Were you  _ scared? _ ”

“Everyone was, Miss Leela. Half the night we all waited - watching the flies descend on the dinner no one dared touch even if the priests hadn’t sealed - that is, they brought in big glass domes like reliquary lids to put over the tables, and veils for the food on the floor. We watched the royal artificers and investigators and arbiters hunt through the shambles of the King’s table, all of us wondering if we’d see another dawn. In the third hour of midnight, at last, the royal physicians said the danger was past, the King was well - and even then, we were forbidden to leave until the source of poison was found.”

“Flies. Descending through glass.” Hiraeth raises a brow. 

Kyra has a sudden coughing fit.

“You have caught me out - I make some little adjustments to the tale in deference to delicate appetites. If you would  _ personally _ prefer acquaintance with the exacting and gruesome truth, I will happily step outside with you sir.” Roan smiles, but his gray eyes give no quarter before an angry thiefborn giant. 

Hiraeth sets his glass down carefully.  _ What am I thinking? Challenging an academy graduate to a goddamn duel over an idle boast? I’ve had more wine waiting for lunch to reach the table than I’ve touched all night, and you’d think I’d poured half a barrel down my throat. _

“You will excuse my darling son - the precision of his profession does tend to - color his conversation you see,” says Jolene anxiously, offering the boy a plate of tiny beetroot-pink cakes.

“Forgive me, surely I was so entranced by the radiance of the Miss Vohenias that I missed hearing I have the honor of dining with a prominent clockmaker. A fascinating trade,” says Roan, his gray eyes bright with mischief.

“Worse,” says Ishi with an uncharitable giggle. “He’s a  _ clerk _ .”

“Auditor,” corrects Kyra.

“ _ Junior _ auditor,” says Myra with a sidelong glare that says she is determined to continue punishing him for refusing her demands.

“Enough,” growls Hiraeth, heat rising in his face, his throat tight. The vague sense of floating dizziness he’s felt all night boils away, and he is pushing his chair back, imagining the satisfaction that will fill him when he plants his fist in the man’s stupid face when he hears Maximillian's question echoing in his ears.  _ What happens when you’re angry? _

“Also a fine profession for a civilized man,” says Roan smoothly, holding his gaze. “If  _ somewhat _ less thrilling.”

“I don’t give a chipped green rupee for the opinions of barbarians,” growls Hiraeth, but the better half his attention has already dropped the problem of Roan Cepolla to circle around the sudden and intensely violent wickedness welling up in himself. He’s never so much as  _ attempted _ a fistfight - when he was small and the village children mocked him and threw dirt or pebbles or whatever else they could find, he simply found another path. When he was older, the avoidance was mutual. Howsoever dark his thoughts and nightmares became, he’s never felt such  _ visceral _ temptation before. “It is only in records the hidden truths of the world may be glimpsed by mortals. What is seen but not recorded may be lost in a single sharp moment.”

“And what of things recorded but not seen? That very problem lays at the heart of the break with the Rito,” says Roan, tipping his chin in a way that reminds Hiraeth of his father somehow. “Neither alchemist nor artificer nor arbiter could find the slightest trace of poison anywhere in the feast or on anything in the room, or even in the blood of your King.”

“But he almost died! You  _ just _ said so,” insists Saso. “And if the Rito ambassador was innocent, why didn’t we say sorry? Why did they all go away?”

Roan worries his lip. For the first time all night he seems to debate his words for two whole minutes. 

“Truth this time, Cepolla.” Hiraeth holds his voice to a low rumble. He glances at his father - but Link is nibbling torn pieces of bread and giving every impression of having lost interest in the conversation.

Hiraeth does not believe him.

Roan holds up a hand to quiet the girls’ demands, but he looks only at Hiraeth, his expression sober. “Innocence and absence of intent are not the same thing Miss Saso. The diplomats all brought little gifts to celebrate the trade accord and express sympathy for the royal family, but the Ambassador himself brought the cakes your late Queen had so loved at the engagement feast and later the wedding.”

The girls murmur in confusion. 

“A royal edict was posted that very week,” says Link, not looking up from his food. “Even today such delicacies are nut welcome in the castle.”

_ Wait.  _ **_What?_ **

Roan opens his mouth to speak, then shuts it without having made a sound. 

Silence ripples down the table. 

“Was busy with the causeway at the time. Even the quarry men talked about the scandal,” Link continues, gesturing vaguely with a scrap of bread, expression grave. “He refused all audiences and suspended the Council and the peace talks for half a year after the disaster. Some said for fear of wayward chickaloos, others for renewed grief over losing so much of his family, but it was mostly royal sul-king.”

_ I did  _ **_not_ ** _ just hear that.  _

Myra drops her spoon.

_ Or — did I? _

Roan’s brow rises slowly, and he shifts his gaze in time with everyone else. He looks genuinely shocked.

**_Quill_ ** _ mightier than the sword?  _

Link chews another little piece of bread, expression perfectly opaque.

Hiraeth frowns at him.  _ Seeded? Ruffled feathers? _

Link reaches for his wine, unphased.

Everyone looks at Hiraeth as if they expect him to explain why the world is turned upside down.

“That’s it, we’re done.” Hiraeth growls and tosses his napkin on the table. He leans back in his chair, gesturing broadly. “Go fetch your hats and cloaks avha, we have to go live as hermits in the mountains now.  _ Fuck _ that was terrible.”

“ _ Hiraeth Anjotyr Vohenia-! _ ” Jolene snaps automatically, her voice strained as she tries to smother a snicker.

Link’s bright blue eyes crinkle with mischief.

Hiraeth scrubs a hand over his face, and gestures helplessly, completely empty of words. Which is all to the good - if he attempts so much as another syllable he is sure to disgrace himself with giggles.

Link toys with his glass, a cat-in-cream grin blooming over his pale features.

It is worse than giggles. 

Everyone in the room turns - his sisters are alternately hiding behind their hands and pointing at their father as the hilarity infects them too, but every baffled look and snicker just makes him laugh harder. Which makes  _ them _ laugh harder - which dissolves any possibility of regaining anything like dignity before midnight. 

Or maybe ever. 


	35. Danger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for minor peril, chicken-related panic, classism, explosions, affluenza, fire, and casual attitudes towards animal cruelty. 
> 
> (No one _actually_ hurts the cucco.)

There is nothing quite like a cucco to teach one how slow and clumsy is the design of the human form. Zelda spends every possible free hour on training, and still it is ten circuits about the alley and acrid chu jelly in her petticoats and gasping for breath by the time she manages to scoop the terrified bird into her arms. Perversely, once tucked against her chest the cucco chirrs and settles, pecking at her jewelry.

The entire court and all the envoys fall silent.

Zelda stands in the middle of the floating alley, listening to the creak of the barge and the  _ slap-tap-shh _ of little waves against the shallow hull. She endeavors to calm her racing heart and measure her breaths - she is so angry she can barely see straight. 

A princess must be calm and cool and rational and kind and gentle.

A princess must never run, or even falter in her grace, but glide everywhere.

A princess certainly never shows her ankles or shouts or shoves anyone, and never sullies her hands with common farm animals.

Zelda raises her chin and pivots, smoothing her features to perfect serenity even as she lifts her voice in practiced resonance, meant for raising hymns to the gods on sacred ground. “You should be  _ ashamed _ of yourselves.”

No one says anything. Hundreds of pairs of eyes fix on her. The entire court is frozen in the act of lifting their wine or tending a spill of the same from her headlong sprint through the crowd. The King of Hyrule rises from his stupid chair.

“It is terrible enough that you should risk your own lives and those of your servants for some petty little  _ game _ , but now you would torture an innocent creature all because you want to boast that  _ you _ are the most  _ stylish _ when blowing up  _ boxes _ and  _ boards _ ?”

The Hylian nobility look at one another in confusion, uncertain how to behave themselves with their Crown Princess denouncing them all.

“It’s just a  _ cucco _ ,” says one of the Holodrun lords.

“For Light’s sake child, we all  _ ate _ cucco for dinner three hours ago,” says one of the Labrynnan sycophants in Pelligret’s train.

“It is in the design of the gods that some living things must eat others,” agrees Zelda, stalking up the stained and blackened boards. “But this? Is  _ blasphemous _ .”

The King smiles, but his eyes are cold. Always cold. He has never been warm a single day since well before her mother died, and though she cannot name the day it changed, she remembers with her heart a time when he was warm and kind and soft, and his deep voice rumbled like a kitten’s purr in her ears and his strong hands would catch her from little falls and tease her about flying. Zelda hears him say something smooth and neutral and indulgent of her excessive compassion, and wonders if the father of her heart has only ever been a daydream.

“You forget my lord Father, that I am not only your daughter but the  _ Sacred Maiden _ . This terrified creature you would have imperilled for sport, its life wasted for no purpose whatever but a perversion of amusement that would laugh at the pain and destruction of an innocent being.  _ I say the gods look on this in sorrow and wrath _ . Let there be from this moment a law against any captive thing being used as target  _ or _ obstacle in any endeavor that would present a hazard to its health or happiness.”

“Would you also forbid hunting? Dear sweet princess, I honor your divine mercy but this is  _ absurd _ ! You cannot demand that  _ men _ cleave to a standard that would be difficult even for  _ angels _ ,” cries the Earl of Necluda.

“You are  _ mistaken _ ,” says Zelda, shaking with rage. “It is no effort whatever to  _ not _ loose cucco in the path of explosives. It costs you  _ nothing _ to refrain from doing a thing which has no basis whatever in the natural state of anything. Furthermore, the disregard you all evidence for the cucco is an offense to the gods, simply because a  _ small part _ of their design is that they  _ may _ be food for larger creatures,  _ sometimes _ .”

“Zelda. You are perhaps overtired - I see the game has upset you, and we will council our friends to be more thoughtful hereafter - but you forget the  _ entire _ purpose of the cucco is to provide its caretakers with meat and eggs and feathers,” says the King softly.

“It is  _ not _ ,” snaps Zelda, raising her chin and wishing desperately she were as tall as Impa so she could look down her nose at her stubborn father. “ _ We _ did not  _ create _ cucco to serve our selfishness. These children of blessed Farore  _ chose _ to live with us and trade their bounty with us in exchange for plentiful food and protection from the elements, giving of their bodies for the sake of their descendants. We should all aspire to mirror the virtue of the cucco, and honor their gifts.  _ Hear my desire, Hyrule - the ancestor of all cucco shall be elevated as a Saint of Light and any crime against her children is a crime against the Light. _ ”

The court buzzes with shock and speculation. She holds her head high and her back straight as she stalks from the target barge to the shore, carrying the purring cucco away to - she is not yet sure, but probably the garden. She will have to hire someone who knows how to care for cucco, and she is trying to decide which jewels she should send Impa to sell to achieve it when there is an explosion behind her. Someone screams.

A second explosion, then a third, and a great gout of greasy black smoke. The ropes and nets of the hazards barges catch fire, the target boards of the one she came from cracked and smoking. Flames spread across the water where pitch and bombflower pollen and naptha and chu jelly float on the gentle waves.

Which is  _ everywhere _ around the barges. Which are no longer firmly tethered.

Someone yells about WarMice.

Soldiers are running towards the shore. Courtiers are running away from it.

Burning pitch drips onto the alley decks and soon engulfs the entire floating hazard field. More explosions, thankfully smaller, for what little good that does anyone.

Zelda stands in the middle of the chaos with her cucco, throat tight and fear cold in her chest as she watches the trapped bargemen scramble to find a way to escape their burning crafts. Her father is still standing on the dias, and Lord Pelligret of Labrynna is saying something about the Zora problem. As if a dozen men are not in peril twenty yards away.

One of the men on the barges tears his coat from his shoulders and throws it over part of the blaze near the edge of the upper deck. He crouches with something bright in his hands, and the smouldering mess of net and coat fall to the alley below. He gestures to the others, and soon they are all stripping their clothes to smother and cut away the burning ropes along one side of the barge. The water below them is still on fire, but their work is keeping the blaze from spreading across the upper deck even as the polished alleys smoke and spark and start to burn.

One of them stands from the crowd and sprints across the upper deck. He takes a wild leap over the flames licking the edge and catches a burning ladder on the other barge. The bargemen there yell and run to him, pulling the ladder up until he can catch the edge, then cut it free. He is bellowing and pointing and they are scrambling about the upper deck doing  _ something _ .

Impa is trying to push through the hysterical courtiers. Zelda runs back to the royal dias, begging the gods to send a rainstorm to smother this disaster as they did to douse Cartwheel Street.

“I am confident you  _ will _ resolve the Zora problem, your majesty.  _ Peacefully _ ,” says Pelligret, ignoring her mad dash past him. He sips his wine, perfectly calm, as if he can neither hear nor see the chaos.

“Hyrule will defend her borders and her loyal subjects as she sees fit,” says the King, ignoring Zelda as thoroughly as he is ignoring the fire.

“Father - we have to  _ do _ something,” cries Zelda. She has never in her life wished harder that she could harness the magic she feels in the world. Twenty men are going to burn to death on Castle Lake for sake of a violent game  _ they _ weren’t even playing and had no choice but to construct and tend for their masters. She is somehow not surprised to see Maxamillian d’Oro lounging against one of the pavillion posts, sipping his own wine and watching the fire with a vapid expression of vague amusement, as if he is just as pleased to gawk at a disaster as he was to listen to the floating concert that afternoon. Even though his own servant is likely still somewhere in the crowd of trapped bargemen.

“You should retire to your tower, Zelda. It is unfortunate the evening should end so early, but the gods did not will it longer,” says the King, patting her veiled head.

“Likewise it may be  _ the gods’ will _ that Hyrule has no more salt,” says Pelligret, toying with his glass. “Or rice. Or tobacco. Or shock arrows.”

“That  _ would _ be unfortunate. For  _ everyone _ ,” says the King with a broad smile that makes Zelda’s stomach churn.

Someone screams from the barges - others shout and cry. Someone falls into the burning water and vanishes.

The hazard barges are drifting much farther away from shore. The lower deck and alleys of both are burning furiously, and it is hard to see the upper deck through the thick smoke. One of the boats is listing heavily to one side, and the silhouettes of the trapped bargemen are struggling with some incomprehensible task. One of the silhouettes leaps from the upper deck into the fiery lake, his form perfect and graceful as a Zora. He vanishes completely as the one who fell by accident, and the barges drift farther apart. 

The soldiers on the shore shout and argue, and two of them take hold of a bombachu crate and heave it into the burning lake to discharge with relatively minimal harm as it sinks. 

Impa grabs her shoulder, growling something Zelda cannot hear. She is busy watching a dark shape rise on the other side of the burning water from the target barges.

A cry rises from one of the pleasure barges tethered further up the shore. One of the officers near the royal pavilion looks toward the commotion and bellows a command that has half the soldiers sprinting for the pleasure barge. Servants are running about on the deck of it and one of them leaps into the lake with a rope. 

Impa picks her up like a child, throwing her over one shoulder, cucco and all - and running away from the pavilion.

The last thing she sees before the flash and smoke of deku shells envelops her is three people being pulled onto the deck of the pleasure barge as a dozen others throw their entire weight into poling the heavy craft out into the lake after the burning boats.


	36. Vertigo

The smooth, warm amberwood of his cittern feels good in his hands, and moonlight through the carriage window shimmers beautifully on its delicate whorls of silver filigree and inlaid mother-of-pearl. He knows why the ornamented ebony jewelbox seemed so familiar now - the dramatic yet mathematical flourishes are so alike in style they must have been designed by the same workshop, if not the same artisan, too lively and well-matched to their purpose to be copies. Yet this should be impossible: the cittern is _profoundly_ antique, and the ebony box is barely older than he is. 

Hiraeth plucks a soft arpeggio, trying to set the puzzle aside and enjoy the golden harmony - and the unexpected opportunity to indulge it. He is still jittery and overwarm from performing a composition of his own in front of strangers, and he is determined to invent some form of revenge on Ishi for stealing the cittern from his room and contriving to drag him onto the tiny stage with it. “You sure you’re ok baba?”

“I’m sure,” murmurs Link, leaning his fair head back against the cushions and petting Leela’s hair. She fell asleep long before the recital ended, and didn’t rouse when Hiraeth carried her down to the carriage. The other girls are all half-asleep already, even the impling, and Jolene is staying late with the luthier’s wife to help with dividing and packing the remains of the feast.

A blessing _they_ are too tired to notice the stench of bombflower and char on the wind. _I could drive us all the way to Lon Lon in the time it takes us to follow this absurd detour._ “Not sure what to play that’s quiet. Haven’t done much this year but dancing reels and gigues and such for the girls’ practice. I forget how-”

“You don’t,” interrupts Link, calm and quiet and inflexible. “You’re just trying to avoid the song in your hands.”

“Fair,” rumbles Hiraeth, moving through keys and basic patterns, pleased that even after two hours playing, his fingers do not slip. “I can’t think of other melodies with _that one_ still playing a damn rondo in my head. I don’t know how she turned three-bar nonsense sketches into a whole sonata. Name a folk song or something so I can break out of it.”

“Rather hear the original,” says Link. “Don’t scowl at me. I know it’s coming this time.”

Hiraeth shakes his head, but the main chord slips through his fingertips, and he has to lay his hand over the bridge to silence it. “Why should you have to think of the war more than once in a night? Name something else.”

“Not a single sunrise passes for me _without_ remembering, but that’s - not _quite_ why things looped and tangled. Please, play the original. Tell me how you came to write it. How it makes _you_ feel. _Then_ I will try to explain.”

Hiraeth winces, bowing to peer out the carriage window at the tedious press of other carriages and wagons and artisans and laborers forced to keep a snail’s pace along to crowded thoroughfare, under the watchful eyes of a thousand royal knights. Hiraeth does not like the way they’re watching everyone, and he is glad they didn’t light any lanterns inside the barouche. _What are they trying to find and how is_ **_this_ ** _nonsense supposed to find it?_

“Jojo,” murmurs Link.

“I don’t know when I first thought of it. Just one of those nonsense tunes you hum without thinking,” says Hiraeth with a shrug. “After Ishi’s adventures chasing the regiment though, something about that horrendous brass horn made me wonder if nonsense things like that could become actual music. The themes she used tonight never went anywhere in my hands. Too short maybe. And I’m not half the composer she is.”

“You have different styles. It’s not a thing you can measure and rank. I’ve heard other things you write,” says Link softly. “Now I want to hear this one, as it lives in _your_ spirit.”

Hiraeth sighs. He plucks a few soft tones, finding the chord and fanfare that sparked the idea so many years ago. He watches his father as he drums a quiet march with his thumb alongside the fanfare, strumming out six articulated chords, letting the seventh ring.

Link draws a deep breath when the harmony fades, nodding for him to continue.

Hiraeth caresses the humming strings, walking the notes along until he finds the key that feels right. He hasn’t consciously touched the main theme in years. His focus narrows to following the syncopated walking sequence, slow and uncertain, barely even voiced. 

Link’s eyes remain fixed on him as he plays, and despite the dark, his pupils draw in. He is frighteningly still and silent, yet the chaos inside him _screams_. It is not as sharp as during the recital, but only just barely. 

Hiraeth walks through a brighter version of the theme, an octave lower, a third faster - it remains the same. He imagines he can feel the discord it stirs inside his father. His own bones ache strangely, yet now that he’s begun the song, he _needs_ to follow it to the end of the thread. Wherever the end is. He finishes the phrase and drops that melody for the third Ishi stole, a sprightly thing, _almost_ a reel, though in his hands it is half-speed and murmurs in time to click and rattle and grind of the carriage wheels.

Link sniffles and wipes his nose on his sleeve. But - he is not petrified this time. He rolls his elegant, scarred hand in the air, urging him silently to continue.

So Hiraeth plays. Quest. Fanfare. Walk. Dance. Fanfare. March. 

And then on the heels of an experimental layered phrase a new theme sneaks in. He lays his hand over the bridge to silence it too late.

Or - not exactly _new_ . A rising, yet wistful hymn he’s never dared write down. When he was small, Jolene caught him humming it to himself as he tended his own chores. She left dinner to burn while she dragged him out to the garden for a lecture he couldn’t even remember except that she was fighting tears as she ordered him _never_ to sing it again.

But Jolene isn’t with them - and his father’s lips twitch in the beginnings of a melancholy smile - and then Link murmurs: “That one too. How many fates live in your spirit as color and song, Jojo? Do you hear low pipes too? Tritones and minor climbing thirds?”

Hiraeth studies him in the thin moonlight, but all he sees is a distant melancholy, as if his father is too tired from the long party to even grieve. He lets his hand drift up the neck of the cittern, quieting the anxious chatter as if he’s stepping back from a riotous tapestry to take in the whole pattern.

Note by note, a snippet of ominous dirge whispers from the resonant amberwood without conscious thought behind it.

Link sniffles and bares his teeth in a bitter chuckle. “In this country, many people think music has magical powers. In the desert, it is understood that music rises through the spirit. The People see spirits as threads, lives as patterns. They say no thread is spun or cut alone.”

“Sounds poetic,” murmurs Hiraeth, quieting the strings under his hand again, his pulse racing.

“It is. Poetry is important to the guardians of spirit, as is song. As much or more than here,” says Link softly, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “The rondo isn’t nonsense. There’s no reason _you_ should know it, but not even the old gods can refuse the true cry of the spirit. In the same way there are days of rain and of sunshine, there will be times you hear songs or silence or discord in your own heart. Which you choose to _sing_ , well. It’s still your choice.”

Hiraeth nods, though an electric sort of tremor is rippling under his skin and he is dizzy again. 

Link bows his head, looking at his right hand as he flexes and tightens it on nothing. Like it pains him. “There’s a palace in the southern swamps of Termina. Heart of the western Deku nations. I lived there for - a while. The anthems of their people and yours resonate in your spirit.”

“Why would I hear Deku songs though? I’ve never even spoken to one of the forest-dwellers,” murmurs Hiraeth.

“That is - not a story for tonight,” says Link, his voice rough. “Play that diatonic reel from earlier or a folk song or something.”

Hiraeth obeys, cycling through quiet versions of as many light, common melodies as he can remember. They do not speak the rest of the way. 

The girls wake up when they reach home at last, barely three hours to dawn. It is fortunate they do, for even with help out of his coat and boots, the long night catches up to him before he’s managed even half the stairs. He cannot help his father shepherd the girls to their beds even if he wanted to.

Hiraeth stumbles on the landing, and again on the third step of the next flight. He clutches the rail with all the strength he has left, but he is so tired and dizzy and his room is so achingly far away that he cannot make himself take another step. He would give up and rest on the landing bench, but he is worried about ruining the kurta. He wishes he’d asked for nightclothes and changed in the music room or something _before_ attempting the stairs. 

Nausea rises even though he is standing still. He fights it, and loses. Link hears him and rushes to his side, helping him to the next landing. He feels foolish for letting the miraculously successful party lure him into complacency.

The next few hours are a fog of pain and sickness and confusion, worse than the first time he and Julien raided Max’s cabinets, before he learned why cordial is served in tiny glasses. Link stays with him until Jolene gets home, helping him out of the kurta and urging him to drink as much sour tea as he can swallow, even though he can’t keep it inside him for more than ten minutes.

It’s _mortifying_.

Hiraeth curls on his side and thinks about pulling the blankets over his head to shelter him from what little of the dawn sneaks through his curtains. He does not. A heartbeat’s delay could make the difference between reaching the slops bucket in time or - not. 

He is glad he can finally string three sensible words together inside his aching head, and has no interest whatever in provoking another wave of misery. Not that he can put his mind towards anything useful - he is full of whirling fragments of riddles and non sequiturs and hints, flashes of memory from the dancing and feasting and days before. 

Julien in cold fury. Roan Cepolla catching him in the hall after the recital to offer a tenuous peace, complimenting his sensitivity to and discreet shielding of Link’s panic during Ishi’s sonata. The Minister giving him a glass full of disgusting green medicine. Link wearing midnight black and a deadly grin. Max cornering him in the breakfast room. Link speaking openly of Gerudo culture for the first time. 

The thought brings the man to knock on the doorframe behind him. “Still awake?” 

“To my everlasting annoyance,” grumbles Hiraeth. 

“Hn,” says Link. He brings over a glass of heavily sweetened milk tea. “This should help.”

Hiraeth glares up at him.

“Alchemist promised. I added enough honey you _probably_ won’t taste anything else,” he says, offering his free hand to help him sit up.

Hiraeth drinks the brew as fast as he dares, somehow unsurprised by the familiar, revolting aftertaste. _I will never again mistake green chu jelly after drinking a whole glass of it straight._ “Blegh. Vile. Not enough honey in all of Hyrule for _that_.”

Link trades him a slender flask for the empty glass. “When you’ve half of this one, I’m opening the curtains. Don’t argue - the sunlight will help.”

“Help split my head open maybe. How about _not_ ,” grumbles Hiraeth, leaning back into the cushions to sip from the flask. Which is sweet. And fizzy. And exactly like the liquor the Minister served him to chase the bitterness.

“How about you trust I know what I’m talking about,” says Link, puttering about with clearing away empty cups and tidying blankets. “It _will_ hurt at first, but staying in the dark in this state will do _far_ worse, Jojo. Besides, kinda hard to read without light.”

Hiraeth frowns at the shadows, savoring the liquor, debating whether he should ask his father what it is, or his employer, and whether either is likely to tell him the truth. “Harder still if you blind me with said sunlight. Even a shielded lamp sounds _miserable_ right now baba.”

“Lamplight is a poor counterfeit anyway. Better if you lay in the garden all morning, but a window’s better than nothing. Drink up - sooner treated is sooner healed.”

Hiraeth makes a face and swears at him.

Link just folds his arms and waits.

Hiraeth glares at the flask between cautious sips. To his chagrin the nausea _is_ easing. Finally. _What_ **_is_ ** _this stuff and why is everyone avoiding what this and green jelly are supposed to_ **_do_ ** _that’s different from any other pain brew?_

Link hums to himself, moving about the dim room, restoring order while he waits. He makes good on his threat about the windows, but he does at least pull the gauze curtains over to soften the glare of morning. He perches on the edge of the bed, hands folded on his knee, lending his bastard son a quiet strength somehow as Hiraeth struggles through the predictable flare of crushing electric agony brought by that damn light.

It is slim comfort that his stomach only _threatens_ this time. 

“Stopped by the bookshop on the way back,” says Link softly. 

 _No you didn't. There’s not a bookshop between the house and the alchemist. And you weren’t gone long enough to reach anywhere else with the army underfoot everywhere._ Hiraeth sips from the flask again, watching Link’s expression as he digs a slender antique volume from the inside pocket of his open doublet. It’s casebound in soft leather, still supple and smooth in hand, but the corners are misshapen and gently frayed, betraying many years of loving owners behind it.

“Noticed pages falling out of your copy,” says Link with a patently forced shrug.

Hiraeth sets the nearly empty flask aside, swiftly muffling his surprise to find he holds an elegant printing of _Avoemayish of Erech_ . Of which his cheap copy _is_ starting to fall apart - but his parents aren’t supposed to know he has it at all. _Technically_ poetry, written at a crossroads of history and myth that skirts far too close to The Rules for comfort.

Link scrubs a hand over his face, averting his eyes. He murmurs five lines to the rising dawn in the halting cadence of someone who doesn’t actually _know_ the ancient language on his tongue. 

> _"They pledged eternal friendship,_  
>  _the King and the wildborn hero_  
>  _Sent by the gods to destroy him._  
>  _All of Erech stared wondering,_  
>  _but perfect was their friendship.”_

“You’ve _read_ this-?” Hiraeth stares at him, illness momentarily forgotten.

Link shakes his head. “Never. It was read to me, many times. Long ago.”

“They told you what it means?” Hiraeth hides his astonishment in turning pages, marveling at the facing-page design of ancient cuneiform text and modern Hylian translation with hundreds of delicate marginal annotations in a textbook-perfect hand. He decides it must have been printed shortly after the King Williric Daltus Hyrule charged the royal academies to establish standard spellings - possibly as part of the efforts to promote the new order - maybe a treasured favorite of some long-dead scholar.

“It’s an old story of great warriors,” says Link with a sour-apple smile. “Destined enemies, closest companions, even through the gates of death.”

Hiraeth raises a brow. “Not just any fighters. A king and a hero. Quite violent in places.”

“And yet I remember tenderness between them,” says Link to the dawn.

Hiraeth closes the book, waiting for a wave of renewed dizziness to pass through him and settle again. “ _How can I be silent, How can I rest, When he whom I love is dust?_ ”

“Just so,” murmurs Link. “Erech is lost and forgotten - even I cannot find it. But _they_ are remembered forever.”

“Hn,” says Hiraeth, baffled. “All great art is at the core of it just make-pretend that people _wish_ were true. Erech wasn’t ever real outside of songs. Avoemayish wasn’t any one person any more than the night-goer was a real beast.”

Link turns to him, frowning. 

“Being make-pretend doesn’t make the story any less important baba,” says Hiraeth quickly. “What people wish for is important. Everything you’ve ever built, you had to _wish_ existed before you could begin solving how to make it.”

Link tips his chin, his blue eyes intense and utterly opaque. “You read this book until it falls apart because _you_ wish for something in it.”

Hiraeth fidgets with the antique book. _Someone who was born in the fields like you, raised by the mountains like you, and washed by the great sea like you, you will see him and rejoice. You will spare him when he would strike you, and you will lead him to me_. “Who doesn’t want to be a hero sometimes, respected and admired, with a thousand friends and every good thing?”

“Don’t ever wish to be like me,” whispers Link. “The life of a hero isn’t like that _at all_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on the nerdery and so forth:
> 
> \- I imagine the first piece Hiraeth plays coming out something like Isaac Saleh’s cover, whereas Ishi’s ‘little sonata’ is rather more like Theophany’s rendition (complete with Leela screaming for Artistic Effect).
> 
> \- The reason Link almost had a meltdown at the recital is twofold: his own not-inconsiderable time wearing the face of a dead Deku Scrub, and also a reference to chapters 53, 55 and 56 of Sorrows... and What It Means that his daughter knows those melodies to write a sonata using them.
> 
> \- The odd little wistful fragment he plays would be something like a snippet of the themes from  Spirit of the Valley
> 
> \- The bit about ‘tritones and rising minor thirds’ is a reference to this.
> 
> \- Avoemayish is a not-very-clever reference to our Gilgamesh, but hey, names are hard.


	37. Subterfuge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for implied peril I suppose.

Zelda paces her study in the early dawn, looping swift and tight even though she feels queasy.  _ But what is a little nausea when those bargemen suffered far worse? _ “Impa you  _ must _ go help them -! You know a hundred million things that soldiers and physicians do not -  _ I _ am perfectly safe. Go see to  _ them _ .”

Impa folds her arms and holds her ground in front of the door. “I fulfill my duty to the throne of Hyrule. The timing and severity of the accident can only be the product of malice. Whoever their original intended victim, they were not above threatening your life. Until they are neutralized,  _ you will remain in this tower. _ ”

“Fine - then  _ I _ will stay if I must. But  _ you _ are free to-”

“No Sheikah is  _ free _ ,” says Impa, and her voice has never been so cold. “I serve the throne of Hyrule. A few commoners and foreign servants are of no consequence whatever when a very real threat has been leveraged against the life of the Crown Princess. You will apply yourself to your prayers and studies in the safety of your tower, behind wards and charms and a hundred of the best knights Hyrule has under her banners, and  _ I will do my damn job _ .”

Zelda stops in the middle of the room, staring at her stern governess and bodyguard and closest friend. She has never heard Impa swear before. She hears the rebuke of the archive guard echo in her ears:  _ Sheik, I know your people are blood-bound.  _ “You - you are taking  _ his _ side? When you are sworn to  _ me _ ? He does not even see how cruel the court has become, he let these poor men  _ burn _ while he threatened the ambassador with a war  _ we cannot fucking afford  _ and serves  _ no purpose  _ whatever, and you will be his  _ lapdog _ ?”

“Zelda,” says Impa in a tone of warning.

“I will use whatever language I please!  _ I _ am the  _ sacred maiden _ and I am  _ not _ made of glass and  _ you have never been my friend _ , have you?”

“Zelda. Dearest.  _ Listen to yourself. _ This is what comes of neglecting your responsibilities to your country to indulge in foreign vice. You are not in your right mind,” says Impa.

“I am more right than I have ever been, and I  _ hate _ it.  _ You _ are my father’s spy,  _ I _ am mired with these stupid,  _ worthless _ trappings of rank, and a dozen men are dead or dying of burns and noxious fumes all because  _ somebody _ wanted to make a political statement by sabotaging a reckless  _ game _ .”

“I serve the throne of Hyrule,” growls Impa. “The King orders that you focus on your duty and I on mine. The bargemen either saved themselves, or they didn’t. For the love of Light, Zelda,  _ they work on boats _ . It’s what they do. If they couldn’t find the courage to leap and the wisdom to swim, they may attribute their suffering to the proper cause.”

“They weren’t all bargemen though! I saw it, how half the court sent their servants out there after the first accident. How would  _ they _ know what to do? If not for that  _ one- _ ”

“It is the nature of people that any group is collectively more stupid than their least intelligent member, and that  _ one _ will always have a more level head than the rest. You are once again letting your tenderness cloud your thinking. More important than any of those people is the question of  _ who set those charges in the first place _ , and why they would risk everything just for the chance to eliminate  _ one _ of the hazard players, and why they would  _ dare _ ignite the final charge to endanger  _ you _ .”

Zelda stares at her. “No one could have possibly known I would be anywhere near-”

“Do not be so foolish,” snaps Impa, stalking from the door to throw open her desk and draw from it the much-abused  Tarryn’s Tales . “You have wasted  _ months _ on this flight of fancy, misusing your training to lose your head in fairy tales. Anyone with the slightest suspicion that you’ve sentimental ideas might guess that you would be wholly incapable of resisting the lure of a small animal being introduced as a hazard.”

Zelda sinks to her knees right there on the rug, horrified. She doesn’t know what to think. Even if Impa is her  _ father’s _ spy, even if she knew from the beginning what Sheik was looking for in the archives, she would never betray her to an  _ outsider _ . Surely. She is the sacred maiden. Raising a hand against her carries a death sentence and worse.

Impa sighs, and her stance relaxes. She returns the antique book to its hiding place. “I  _ cannot _ do what you ask, dearest. I love you as my own child, but I serve the throne of Hyrule as my ancestors before me. Trust the gods to lead those people to their proper fates, and apply yourself to your studies. You hold the key to our only hope of lasting peace. Your truest duty as Crown Princess is to secure that peace by any means necessary, and you cannot do that if you are getting yourself blown to pieces for the sake of a goddamn  _ cucco _ .”

Zelda sniffles, trying to hold back her tears, and failing. It is hard - maybe impossible - to maintain the proper royal mask here, in private, after everything that has happened in the last few days. “I don’t  _ have _ the  _ whole _ key. Every clue hidden in the sacred texts and hymns and relics says the gate to the sacred realm is sealed by  _ three _ keys,  _ three _ jewels the golden goddesses entrusted to their chosen guardians, and the ancient skyflute merely activates them. How can I open the gate to peace when we must be at peace already to  _ gain _ those jewels? It makes no sense!”

“The ways of the gods are beyond mortal grasp. Which is  _ precisely _ why you should apply every effort to mastering  _ your _ divine gifts so you can perceive that pattern. You know in your heart of hearts this is true,” says Impa, returning to her post by the door. “I have faith you will find the way -  _ if _ you will stop recklessly endangering yourself for no good reason.”

The words click strangely in her mind, and Zelda looks up into Impa’s red eyes, searching for the truths hidden under her inflexible decree. “What  _ would _ be a  _ good _ reason?”

Impa raises a brow. “You heard the ambassador’s threat. We need closer eyes on him - and a listening stone on as many of the envoy as we can get. We need leverage and we need it  _ now _ . Labrynna  _ must not _ declare war.”

“Well  _ I _ need to know how many bargemen survived. I need to know the families of the dead. I need to know the name of the hero on those boats,” snaps Zelda, digging through the pockets of her overdress for handkerchief. She does not find it.

“Then Sheik will have to keep his ears open for you, won’t he?” Impa smirks, and stalks across the room for a fresh handkerchief from the basket by the window. She slides the latch open and clicks her tongue at the pale early morning sky. “Pity he’s too hungover to be of any use today.”

Zelda frowns, drying her face with the soft, lace-edged handkerchief, buying herself more time to think. _ Father’s demand that  _ **_I_ ** _ be confined to the tower doesn’t apply to Sheik - what if the soldier was right? What if Impa  _ **_is_ ** _ bound to obey royal orders by more than an oath? Is that why she is so cold sometimes? Is this her only way of helping me when Father is being stupid _ ? “Pelligret won’t be opening his doors until zenith at least, and by then audience hours will have begun. I don’t suppose I am too ill to attend-?”

“Unlikely,” says Impa, folding her arms.

“Then it will have to be someone close - Euphemia is right out - she fidgets too much and will surely discover it - unless you have one that looks like a strand of pearls? Also she likes to sleep late as her husband when she can. So shall we roll the dice and plant a few stones on servants? Or is there someone in his train-?”

Impa lifts her chin the way she always does when she is waiting for Zelda to finish a proof or an abstract.

“His friend. The untitled fop. He doesn’t stay in the castle - no rented room could be half as secure as the state rooms. The stone needn't even be on  _ him _ \- d’Oro carries that stupid dress sword everywhere to remind everyone he’s  _ technically _ a knight - surely one of the jewels on the hilt or sheath could be switched?”

Impa answers with a lopsided grin. She unwinds the wide ribbon from her queue, smoothing it in her fingers and revealing a hidden pocket from which she draws a strand of delicate faceted crystal beads. She slides one free, holding it in the light so Zelda can see it turn blue-purple. “I understand the fountain district is considered fashionable.”

Zelda rises to take the tiny stone, mind already racing ahead to which tools she will need to pry one of the original gems off and secure the enchanted one in its place. She waits for Impa to resettle her queue. “Impa - please don’t be angry. I just - I  _ have _ to know something.”

Impa folds her arms over her chest, widening her stance. She says nothing.

Zelda draws a deep breath. “As Crown Princess of Hyrule,  _ I order you _ to remain in this tower and neither speak nor write nor yet sing anything until I  _ order  _ otherwise.”

Impa’s stern and sardonic expression shifts, her red eyes cold, her jaw tight as she bows. Stiff. Formal. Correct.

“If I were to climb out this window right now, you couldn’t stop me, could you?”

Impa glares. She says nothing.

“I wouldn’t even need to be Sheik, and you couldn’t raise the alarm now. Could you.”

Impa rolls her eyes.

Zelda’s stomach clenches, and the nausea threatens to ruin everything. “I  _ am _ sorry. I have to know for sure if  _ my _ order can outweigh  _ his _ . So I’m going out. As me. I’ll be back though. I promise.”

Impa sighs. She does not move from the door. Even when Zelda climbs out of the window still wearing (most of) her court dress.

Zelda waits on the second terrace of her tower for twenty minutes, but nothing happens. Or rather, things  _ do _ happen, but nothing that matters. The sky brightens, and the watch changes as usual, and the gardeners putter about far below, attending their duty. Thin smouldering curls of black smoke still rise from the half-sunk barges drifting on Castle Lake, but the shore and lawn are empty. 

Sheik climbs the rest of the way down to the curtain wall, heading for town as fast as he dares go. He does have to make a little detour into groves and gardens now and again to empty his stomach, but he holds fast to his mission.  _ I should swear off cordial forever except they are delicious. Far better than wine. Who would have thought such tiny glasses could add up so fast? I just - have to count more carefully next time. _

No one of any rank rises before ten at least - and Maximilian d’Oro The Professional Flirt imagines himself the equal of those he flatters, keeping their habits in every way.

It is not hard to guess which of the townhouses are rentals and which are owned. From there it is not even an hour’s labor to divine which the pompous Labrynnan is most likely to have chosen.

Sheik is delighted to find an attic window unlatched. From there it will only be a matter of assuring himself of his target, and stealing the sword away to a dark corner for five minutes. The dim attic is quiet and crowded as he could ever wish, and the servants’ hall below entirely empty, the lamps cold. The servants are not even up yet to tend fires and breakfasts and laundry.

He slips over the railing, using the balusters to reach the dim corridors of the family bedrooms without risking a creaking tread. The largest two stand opposite one another at the center of the townhouse. The grandest will either overlook the square or the garden - Sheik decides to try the front bedroom first, as Maxamillian seems the sort of man who would want to know who passes by and who stands at his door before the servants come to tell him. The keyhole shows him an empty sitting room with fashionable white furniture and sky-blue upholstery. Discarded clothing lumps about the room, much of it heaped on the tufted side chair and the console behind the curved sofa. The curved, ornamented sheath of his target peeks out from under the wadded pink silk sash and rumpled blue velvet doublet.

The door is not locked. Nudging it open shows him the door to the dark bedroom is half-open, the bedcurtains open and its blankets occupied. Sheik slips into the dim room, silent, careful, avoiding the narrow bar of light sneaking between heavy blue curtains. 

He reaches for the sword.

“I do not like killing children,” says a soft, deep voice behind him.

Sheik freezes.

“It has been required of me before, and no doubt it will be unavoidable again. War is like that. Nonetheless, I do not like it. Those who ask it of me earn a place of - let us call it  _ honor _ \- on my list, and their days are numbered thereafter,” continues the man.

“I mean no harm to anyone in this house. I come in peace,” whispers Sheik.

“It is a dark heart that lies twice in one beat,” says the man equitably. Something about the way he says it seems familiar. “Drop your needleblades and turn. Cry out and it will not go well for you.”

Sheik obeys. He chokes down a reflexive yelp when he sees the broad-shouldered man sitting in the shadowed chair beside the cold fireplace, curved sword balanced across his knees. He cannot make out the man’s face, and he cannot  _ quite _ place the voice. He cannot imagine how he could have looked  _ right at him _ a moment ago and seen only an empty chair, nor yet how the man could have sat at leisure without a single whisper betraying his motion.

“I am disappointed in your mentor,” says the man, tipping his head. “I used to think her clever. Now she sends her young protege to die in a sloppy, desperate gambit for love of a  _ scorpion _ .”

_ Vohenia used the same insult. _ “You are mistaken - the princess sends me to avert a war.”

“You stand in the wrong house for that. Your mother would weep to see you on this path.”

“Do not presume to speak for the dead,” snaps Sheik, before he can think better of it. He suspects maybe the cordials haven’t finished running their course after all - but it is said and out and he can’t take it back.

“Your ignorance of diverse magics is  _ appalling _ ,” says the man. He rises with predatory grace, the striking arc of his bright blade dividing Sheik from the door. “I suppose it is a  _ small _ mercy of the gods that your father need never learn how  _ fucked _ is your education in  _ literally _ everything.” 

Sheik is frozen by indecision. He cannot see the jeweled probabilities, the shining arcs of branching paths, the expected miasma of death or sharp-edged challenge in the shadowed face of the man before him. He does not know how to move against - or away from - an opponent he cannot read. Even on the training fields, against scarecrows and counterweighted boards, in Council meetings, at court, he has always seen at least  _ some _ paths. The struggle has always been to see more of them, and more clearly, to grasp the meaning and end consequence, and choose the best. He has never faced absolute void before, not even with Vohenia. “If I do not return to the Castle before zenith, your countrymen’s lives will be forfeit.”

The man grunts in amusement, a familiar sound. He moves into the light, and Sheik chokes on his own wind. Maxamillian d’Oro is not a weak, frivolous, brainless fop after all.

“Return  _ alive _ ,” amends Sheik in a whisper. Not begging, but almost. 

Maxamillian does not smile. His dark eyes reveal  _ nothing _ . “You will return to me for remedial lessons at eight in the morning every Lightsday and Woolsday until you are capable of defeating me.”

“You demand the impossible,” breathes Sheik, scrambling to fabricate an explanation that does not reveal Zelda’s obligation to visibly attend matins and Council and Court.

“Then I shall pay a visit to your mentor and your King instead.”


	38. Theory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for references to systemic fantasy racism and violence.
> 
> Hyrule has Issues(tm).

Given the choice between nausea and headache, anyone rational must choose the headache. Hiraeth looks on the spangled haloes around every shard of reflected sunlight, and vehemently disagrees. The throbbing, electric pain and the searing, fragmented light seeds a kind of illness not even the green medicine can touch.

Worse still is the racing chaos of his thoughts. It is Thornday, and five days since his world made any sense is five days too many. The pattern he feels in these pieces that don’t fit is made of still greater madness. He admits the possibility that the only true thing linking them is that they have occurred around  _ him _ , but even so he cannot stop wondering  _ why _ .

He needs to bring order to the world with the same secret part of himself that still yearns to believe in merciful gods.

Hebron’s accounts are too clean. 

His own father is not who he tells the world he is, his employer and his best friend’s cousin and most likely the Terminan officer  _ know _ that, and keep the secret. From  _ him _ . For  _ reasons _ . That include avoiding the wrath of an  _ architect _ who deserted the army almost twenty years ago.

The Council of Peers approved the Lord Marshal’s request for more legions, and a plan of advance that will seize a hundred thousand hectares of arid, inhospitable plateaus west of the Divine Maiden River. An unfordable river running through a barely bridgeable canyon. For the safety of Hyrule. 

Link forbids his children anything to do with violence, but wears a sword on Lightsday and speaks of  _ consequences _ for warmongers in a voice that echoes like death. 

Lieutenant Roan Cepolla of  _ Termina _ spun a tale of adventurous trespass in Hyrule Castle to amuse the girls, but stared at  _ him _ to deliver a warning about the distance between fault and malice.

His father warned him away from taking on the proverbial Arbiter’s Burden. A job he could never have done, even if he did a thousand others twice as bloody in his youth. High Arbiters are  _ priests _ . 

Max spoke of blood in sacred waters. Of prices paid by  _ his _ people for  _ Hylian _ sins.

His father - who would wear the same tunic all week if his wife didn’t stop him - commissioned extravagant jewelry for a stranger who died on the other side of the world sometime during the same decade he was  _ supposed _ to have been fighting on the western border or at least running from the same.

Hebron is a xenophobic highborn with an especially pronounced hatred of Gerudo thieves, though no one in his family ever fought in the western provinces, nor any of the notable knights he’s sent to the Crown over the years.

_ The richest harvests feed on blood and bone. _

“You are  _ supposed _ to be in bed,” says his stepmother from the door. 

Hiraeth stops trying to wriggle into his coat and leans against the chair. “I know momma. But I  _ have _ to go to work today. It’s important.”

“There are no numbers in the world more important than your health, my son. Sit down before you fall down,” she grouses, stalking across the room to take his earth-brown coat away. “It will be quieter today. The girls’ lessons will keep them busy through the afternoon, and I can make arrangements with the Resils for tonight after I’ve sent for your father and made these Ministry clowns understand-”

“Don’t,” cuts in Hiraeth, holding his hand up between them. “They didn’t summon me, but I can’t stay idle any longer. I  _ have _ to go. As long as my head is spinning around the work I’ve left unfinished, I might as well squeeze some progress out of it.”

“You haven’t been able to stomach a proper meal since Zephyrsday, and you’re two hours late already,” she snaps, shoving his coat in the clothespress without even folding it.

“All the more reason to be on my way  _ now _ ,” he counters. “Sooner I can get back to the routine, the better.”

“And how  _ exactly _ do you expect to get there when you can’t even stand straight?”

Hiraeth groans. “I’ll be fine. It’s not against the law to throw up in the gutter.”

“Funny you should put it that way when they’re posting knights and guards at every damn corner,” she says, folding her arms and glaring up at him. “Are you eight or eighteen? Get your head out of fairy tales and open your eyes boy. Your face is the only excuse they need to make trouble.”

“That’s - momma, that’s  _ why _ I have to go in,” says Hiraeth quietly. 

“No job is worth your life, and your father will call down the gods’ own fury if I let something happen to you.”

“I’m not worried about losing the  _ job _ . If I don’t go in, they’ll reassign my work to some  _ idiot _ who will only make a bloody mess of it and blame  _ me _ for the disaster that follows. You know Hylians can’t count for shit.”

Jolene scowls, grumbles something under her breath, and gestures in warning. “You’re  _ not _ walking, you  _ will _ carry more restorative potions with you, and you’re  _ not _ wearing  _ that _ . Challenge me again young man and your next  _ conversation _ on the matter will be with your father.”

Even with her help it is another twenty minutes getting ready, and he comes perilously near to retching twice. She insists he wear a blueish waistcoat and trousers under his new dark coat, as if formality of dress would ever change the weight of truth. She catches him trying to fetch the pince-nez from the pocket of his other coat, and it is another ten minutes of lecture about the ridiculousness of trying to hide the tools of his trade when everybody knows scholars and scribes and clerks end up wearing glasses eventually. 

Hiraeth does not have the patience to explain why these lenses are an altogether different sort of tool, let alone why he keeps them secret from his father, so he opens the case to show her the jeweled frames and fabricates some vague concern about Ishi’s acquisitive habits. 

To his dismay, she answers this by fetching the new inlaid ebony jewel case from his desk and slipping that in his pocket too. Hiraeth cannot argue that the butterfly is safe when his glasses are not, so he spends the entire long ride to the Ministry plaza with a hand resting on his pocket, praying the soft wool doesn’t gain a hole, that the tipsy covered gig doesn’t hit a divot and tip him out, that he doesn’t trip over his own feet stepping down from it and lose the precious adornment down the gutter, that his fine coat won’t draw the attention of some thief in the plaza.

Two floor supervisors try to stop him in the halls. Hiraeth lets them talk until they run out of words. He holds their gaze in the silence and counts down from thirty, holding fast to his temper and praying his stomach doesn’t betray him. People don’t like when he looms over them, and they don’t like his ill-omened roc’s-gold eyes on them, and they don’t like his silence any more than they like his words.

“Move or be moved,” he says softly, letting the warning rumble from deep in his chest as if he would recite the curse of Malladux to amuse his sisters. Hiraeth advances one step. 

The supervisors retreat two.

“Hn,” says Hiraeth, advancing again, amused that the other men clutch their ledgers tight to their chests and back away. They do not think to call the guard, so the bored soldiers at the stair to the upper offices merely frown as usual and nod him on, assuming his dispute with the supervisors something trivial or administrative and therefore not a concern worthy of their effort.

The Minister’s secretary does not share their opinion. He shouts. Hiraeth does not. He  _ does _ growl.

It doesn’t work.

The secretary threatens him and orders him out. 

Hiraeth folds his hands behind his back and does not move.  _ As long as I’m cursed enormous, I might as well make use of it. _

The secretary issues another dire threat, and when Hiraeth says nothing, flees to the inner office.

Hiraeth waits.

Five minutes pass. Hiraeth counts knots in the coffered panelling.

The Minister of Finance himself pulls the inner door open with a curse.

“Sir,” says Hiraeth with a half-bow, which is all he dares given the infuriatingly persistent vertigo.

“Don’t you  _ sir _ me. Get your ass in here,” snaps the Minister, gesturing impatiently.

“As you wish,  _ Cedric _ .”

“Shut up,” he snarls, bolting the door behind them. He doesn’t return to his desk, but only points to it. “Empty your goddamn pockets.  _ All _ of them.”

Hiraeth raises a brow.

“Do it or get out,” says the Minister, folding his arms. Hiraeth notices he is not wearing his coat, his snowy neckcloth is untied, and the top four buttons of his waistcoat are undone. The day is warm, but not  _ that _ bad.

Hiraeth humors him. Wallet. Pen case. Octavo journal. Sixth volume of the third part of  _ Zelda the Great _ , the one with his adjustments noted in silverpoint along the margins. Pince-nez. Handkerchief. Wilted rose petals, a tangled pink ribbon, and a claret feather, all probably from the party on Zephyrsday. Cepolla’s card. 

He hesitates on the jewel-case, but Cedric is glaring up at him with an expression that says he knows it’s there already. Somehow. 

_ I must be losing my mind. _ Hiraeth places the priceless inlaid ebony box on the mahogany desk with everything else.

The Minister does not look amused. “I should have you dismissed without reference or pay for this. You don’t even make a token effort to attend your work for three days, and when you  _ finally _ deign to recall you in fact have a sworn duty to this country you scare my secretary half to death marching into my damn office to  _ demand _ a meeting.”

“You probably should. But you won’t,” says Hiraeth evenly, folding his hands behind his back.

Cedric swears and turns heel. He pours himself a drink from the sideboard, and doesn’t offer one to Hiraeth. He sets the untouched amber liquor on his desk and drops into his chair, folding his hands over his soft middle. “You’ve the arrogance of a fucking prince, Vohenia. This better be good.”

Hiraeth tilts his head in a mask of mild curiosity, looking down at his employer. He prays his stomach is empty enough to preclude misfortune, and measures his words carefully, his tone cool and objective. “What’s in the highlands?”

“Be more specific.” 

“Hyrule’s been fighting for control of the western river for centuries. What’s in it?”

Cedric frowns. “Besides fresh water we don’t have to play nice with Sea Zora for-?”

“What about river-tribe Zora?

Cedric frowns harder, holding Hiraeth’s gaze, but he shrugs. “They don’t do diplomacy so there  _ is _ no  _ nice _ . It’s deep enough to irrigate all of western Hyrule for decades and never see a difference in the level.”

“There are other rivers. Lakes. Marshes. And the last widespread drought of any serious impact was two and a half centuries ago, and  _ that _ only mattered because Death Mountain coughed ash for a month and poisoned every field and well and tributary in the eastern provinces,” counters Hiraeth, widening his stance and reminding himself it’s a bad idea to pace when he’s bearing one of these headaches. “What does Hyrule want with leviathan bones?”

“Novelty, philters, bragging rights - and the pockets of white naphtha that hide in the ground under them. What’s your point?”

“What’s on the  _ other _ side of the river that  _ isn’t _ on this one?”

“Rupee mines, ancient relics in the wastes and tombs, diamonds, gold, steel in certain parts of the highlands,” he says, reaching for the ebony box as he rattles off the list. He opens it, and whistles appreciatively at the butterfly brooch. “Topaz. Bluestone. Copper.”

“Rocks,” says Hiraeth, and a little of his disgust bleeds through.

Cedric either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. He snorts in wry amusement, holding up the open jewel box so the exquisite stones flash painfully bright. “Yeah.  _ Rocks _ . Shiny, sparkly,  _ expensive _ rocks.”

“So Hyrule can  _ trade _ for  _ rocks _ ,” says Hiraeth.

“Thieves don’t trade,” says Cedric, snapping the jewel box shut.

“Bullshit. Everyone has a price,” says Hiraeth. He leans in, and lowers his voice to a warning rumble. “What do they have that Hyrule can’t  _ buy? _ ”

Cedric doesn’t flinch. He turns the little box in his hands. “Owning both banks of a river that fast means powering a thousand waterwheel diversion loops off a single dam. It changes  _ everything _ .”

“And what will happen to the canyon settlements and farms if that dam is built?”

“Well,” says Cedric softly, his expression carefully neutral. “ _ Those _ aren’t Hylian.”

“And?  _ Answer my question. _ ”

Cedric tilts his head. “What are you getting at Vohenia? You come down with nationalist fever for your mother’s homeland during your little impromptu holiday?”

“Who owns these places? In the canyon, across it, above it? Who lives there and what happens to them and their land when Hyrule marches in?”

“All of Hyrule belongs to the crown, in the end. Hebron has no connection there.”

“ _ Who does? _ ”

Cedric sucks his teeth and quirks a brow, rolling the jewel case in his hands again. “That’s a  _ hell _ of a charge to set your eye on when you still can’t bring me solid proof of your first pet conspiracy theory.”

“Just answer the question,“ rumbles Hiraeth. “I already pulled the public records when I hit a wall weeks ago, and I  _ know _ they’re censored.”

The Minister of Finance stares up at him, hazel eyes unreadable.

Hiraeth stares back.

Cedric points at him with the jewel case. “Give me three days. Keep your head down and your mouth shut. Do I make myself clear?”

Hiraeth bows.

“Not good enough,” says Cedric. He tucks the jewel case in the breast pocket of his waistcoat and reaches for his liquor. He stares at it like he isn’t at all sure he wants it anymore, but in the end he shakes his head and swallows it in one. He plunks the empty glass on the desk. “Swear it on your sisters’ lives or forget the whole thing, because  _ that’s _ the stakes you’re wagering on an allegation like this.”

The dizziness, the pain, the nausea all boil away to nothing, replaced by a heat like the inside of Brother Goro’s forge and a profound desire to heave the desk out of his way and throttle the man. Hiraeth plants his hands on the desk to keep himself from doing any worse and snarls. “You know who my father is, and you  _ dare- _ ”

“I’m not talking to Link,” snaps Cedric, undaunted. “I need assurance of  _ your _ loyalties, young man.”

“I serve in the name of just and rightful law,” growls Hiraeth, too furious to care that he’s setting a torch to everything he and his family have ever worked for.

Cedric studies him. His voice is soft. Cultured. Smooth. Passionless. “Not the crown.”

The words thunder past his teeth before he even knows they’re in his head. “ _ I know what I said. _ ”

“Blessed Three have mercy,” murmurs Cedric, eyes darting and pupils drawn tight. “You  _ are _ your father’s son.”

“Hn,” says Hiraeth, pushing upright and resettling the drape of his coat. Midnight blue. Not black. But almost. “Thought you made a point of knowing who you were paying.”

“Scoundrel,” returns Cedric, his voice strained. He scrubs a hand over his face. He draws a deep breath. Picks up his empty glass. Sets it down again. “Get your bandit-born ass back to your desk. Look harmless and busy until zenith, then go home with a headache. Do  _ nothing _ that varies from your usual habits until I say otherwise.”

Hiraeth raises a brow. “And if I hear nothing by next week?”

“Pray.”


	39. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As indicated by the chapter title there will be blood, and also remember your self-care and please note the work tags. Thanks!

Lightsday morning brings a dull headache that only underscores the deep ache in her bones. Even her spine throbs and crackles as she pulls herself out of bed in the gray-blue of early dawn. The last thing in the world she wants to do on yet another humid autumn day is struggle into bindings and unforgiving Sheikah apprentice garb, and then don her heavy silk gowns alone.

If she does not, people will die.

If she confesses to her bodyguard and governess  _ why _ she  _ must _ vanish between matins and court, people will die.

Zelda washes her face and unweaves her sleeping braids to plait a single long queue she can hide under both the veils of The Sacred Maiden and the snowy turban-and-scarf that marks Impa’s apprentice. In weakness, she thinks wistfully of fruit tarts and bacon and buttered bread. She stands before the mirror to strip off her soft nightgown, as she does every morning, to strengthen her discipline and resolve. To measure every smallest deviation from Sheik’s hard-won strength and hone it away.

This morning she finds blood on her thigh. 

Spots on the woolen gown.

Damning stains on her undergarments.

Sheik is dead. 

Zelda wraps herself in a robe and races back into the bedroom to check the sheets before Impa or the maids can. The goddess grants the smallest possible mercy - the pure white linen remains perfectly clean. 

Zelda locks herself in the bathroom, shaking in terror and grief. She is trapped the moment she is discovered.

She sacrifices three washing-cloths trying to unweave the disaster. It is no use. Blood continues to seep from her traitorous flesh. All her effort has come to nothing. Sheik is dead.

Impa will knock on the bathroom door soon, and Sheik is dead, and there is no longer any way to hide it or stop it.

If Zelda is throwing up, she can escape matins, but not the hovering of maids. She will be discovered at once, and every escape will be sealed. She is trapped.

“The harp. A little song to persuade them they  _ are _ tending me. It will buy  _ one _ day. Only one,” mutters Zelda, staring at the bloodstains on her hands. Sheik must be at the stupid house in the stupid fountain district before eight, but Sheik is dead and Zelda is trapped.

“Time is always worth the cost,” she quotes her terrifying new mentor to the cheerful pink-and-white and gold tiles with their new flourish of tiny bloodspots. “Golden Ones grant I find a way before time runs out.”

Zelda wraps herself in her robe a second time to steal a lemon from the gilt bowl in the sitting room, and the harp from the altar-cabinet. She is not sure either will help, but even the chance is worth it. 

She struggles and curses and scrubs blood from tile and skin. The little cup carved from lemon rind  _ hurts _ \- but does mask the disaster a little. Zelda decides a little is better than none. She sacrifices another washcloth to stuff into her undergarments, and hides herself in Sheik’s heavy, tight apprentice garb. 

She plays the harp for Impa, and again for the maids. She hides the copper tang of blood under too much rosewater and lemon essence. She bundles every scrap of bloody cloth into a bath sheet and flees her tower. Her thoughts race ahead of her, but find no answers. She does not weep. Not yet. First she has to find a new place in the curtain wall to climb, and cut a new path across rooftops. And a place to hide her bloody clothes.

Max will  _ know _ if she uses the same route Sheik used on Woolsday.

As terrible and hopeless as she is, the consequence for Impa, for her father, for  _ Hyrule _ if she does  _ not _ take Sheik’s place in the garden of a foreign diplomat before breakfast will be even worse.

Max does not comment on the heavy perfume his counterfeit student wears. He merely sips his tea and points to the cellar door. Zelda must prove she can pick the lock Sheik was taught on Woolsday before today’s lesson begins. 

Soft amber lanterns welcome her to the cellar where once again a dozen bright steel weapons are arrayed on shallow shelves and hooks along the south wall, opposite the stair. Today the log targets are stacked neatly in the corner, and a row of bright bottles in rainbow colors sit on the east and west benches.

Max descends without a sound, though he is wearing full court dress and heels. The jewels on the hilt of his sword gleam. “Today you will begin with longsword. Stand within the central ring and show me the two-beat attack.”

Zelda shakes the anxiety from her hands and obeys, rehearsing each of the eight attack patterns he taught Sheik. They are different from the fluid, deep movements and intense precision of the Sheikah swordmasters. Max teaches crisp, minimal actions and the scandalous philosophy of  _ close enough _ . He corrects her stance and grip only when her error costs her stamina or stability. He teaches her how to work with poorly-balanced weapons, and he teaches her how to adapt the patterns to small and irregular spaces, to uneven ground and poor - or nonexistant - lighting. He teaches her to move in steady and syncopated rhythms.

Zelda sees no branching probabilities on him at any time. She knows the skill hasn’t abandoned her - yet - because she can see the filigree light-trails of her own weapon, and she could see the jeweled nets of possible paths for every knight and guard and civilian and animal in the streets below her as she fled the castle.

_ Should I ask him why?  _ Zelda lunges through another pattern - six beat with a pivot on four - and on the final step she feels a telltale warmth on the inside of her thigh. She curses under her breath - the session is not even a quarter over.

Max doesn’t notice her despair. Yet. He picks up the orange bottle. “Much better, child. However, today your lesson is not  _ primarily _ the blade, but the  _ spirit _ . Even your holy orders acknowledge it as a sacred element, yet you cannot so much as discern the familiar from the strange, threat from benevolence, presence from absence. To defeat a challenge of spirit, you must know your own - but first, you must learn to appreciate its power, and its limitations.”

Zelda lowers the borrowed sword.  _ Why does he praise my skill a hundred times more often than Impa, yet say my training is a disgrace? It makes no sense. _

Max snorts in derision, and draws the cork from the orange bottle. The orangeness vanishes with a little curl of smoke. 

Three heartbeats later, Zelda is knocked flat, her ears ringing like a temple district carillon. She never saw or heard a thing. She struggles to sit up, dismayed to find Max is leaning against the stair, watching with his now-usual opaque expression.

Something hits her again, from behind.

After the third staggering hit, she notices a faint pentagonal blur bobbing past a lantern. Zelda spins to meet it - and the sword hits  _ something _ . She imagines she hears a warbling cry - the blur twists and vanishes. Zelda pivots - it is bobbing along behind her.

When she strikes the blur a third time, she is  _ certain _ she hears a cry, and a vaguely person-shaped orange shimmer appears in the air. It drops a faceted, translucent lantern, and shrinks to a floating ball of orange light, no larger than a candleflame.

“Good,” says Max, striding across the room to scoop the flame back into the bottle. The lantern vanishes. “Understanding begins with discovering how little you know. The next will not be so easy.”

“That was  _ not _ easy,” grumbles Zelda.

“He  _ should _ have been,” returns Max equitably.

The next bottle is blue.

Zelda promptly decides she hates ice.

Two hours later, bruised, scorched, and thoroughly exhausted, Max finally says the lesson is finished. He opens a sliding panel in the wall to retrieve an iron teapot and two plain iron cups. He serves his student first, as he did four days ago. 

Zelda stands across the bench from her strange mentor. She savors the strong, dark brew that tastes vaguely of brambleberry, so different from anything ever served at the castle. 

“I have a task for you,” says Max, propping one foot on the bench and leaning on his knee. Zelda wonders how she could have overlooked his muscular build for  _ years _ . “Your Minister of Finance has been petitioning for a private audience with your King. Your stewards are turning him away because he is commonborn, and the next public audience day isn’t for another fortnight.  _ You _ will secure access for him. Today.”

Zelda frowns. “Why? How has that anything to do with Labrynna?”

“The stability of her allies is always Labrynna’s concern. Your Minister will not be in his office, but attending devotions at the old temple against the south curtain wall, and then waiting at the steward’s door. Escort him yourself or send a servant, but see that your King speaks with him today.”

“I have no such power. Send him to the Princess instead and  _ perhaps- _ ”

“He must see the King,” says Max, unmoved.

“Why? What can my- my King do for him that my Princess cannot?”

Max sips his tea, looking very much as if he is considering his next move on a Kingmaker board. “He requires explicit royal permission to access to several  _ highly _ classified records. For both himself and a young auditor in his employ.”

_ I do not need a prophecy but a plum. Give me your blessing to bring this attentive, mageblind clerk under my wing as a full auditor.  _ Zelda sets her cup aside. “Does this auditor wear spectacles?”

Max raises a brow. “Just arrange the meeting. By tomorrow at the latest.”

_ You demand the impossible. Again _ . Zelda bows.

“Eight o’clock. Woolsday. Bring a silver Zora scale.”

Zelda bows, and flees the stupid little house as swift as her feet can carry her. Her thighs burn from chafing, and she curses every god she can think of when she takes a moment on a nearby rooftop to inspect Sheik’s heavy wool hose. Her fingertips come away red even at mid-thigh. Soon the dark cloth will not be enough to disguise her condition.

She cannot return home.

She cannot flee.

Morning court begins in an hour.

“The temple - if I can catch the Minister, perhaps there is another way,” mutters Zelda, as she gathers herself for another desperate race across rooftops. Another new path to forge - Max was explicit in his demand that his new student never use the same approach twice, and Zelda dares not doubt his ability to find out either way.

She misses a jump, tearing her hose and skinning her knee as she scrambles to pull herself up to the slate roof of a merchant’s pompous townhouse. She is more careful after that.

It is not enough.

Zelda crashes through a wisteria arbor that isn’t as strong as she thought it was, into an overgrown garden filling the space between two enormous guildhouses and one modest home. She curses under her breath and tries to stand.

She fails.

She bites her tongue on a scream of frustration and despair.

“Who’s there? What broke? If that’s you at mischief again Roan I swear I  _ will _ take the rug beater to your backside,” calls an exasperated woman from somewhere past the flourishing memoryleaf hedges.

Zelda groans, making a rude gesture at the sky. The gods neither aid nor smite her. The garden gate is too far - so she half-crawls towards the shade of the ancient willow and prays the woman won’t find her before she can figure out how to get her feet under her again.

The gods don’t answer that either.

“Goddess Bright - a Sheikah! Oh something must be  _ terribly _ wrong,” cries the stranger, picking up her skirts to race across the garden.

Zelda laughs bitterly, struggling vainly to stand again. Laughter becomes tears that she can’t stop. 

“Oh - Lady bless - you’re bleeding! Stop that foolishness. Don’t move, I can help. You don’t want to hurt worse,” says the woman, kneeling at her side and coaxing her back down. She bows over Zelda’s ankle, prodding gently at her dark kidskin boots.

It hurts immensely. 

Zelda whimpers, until the woman seizes her foot in both hands and pulls sharply.  _ Then _ she screams.

“I know, it’s awful, but you’ll be glad for it later. Hurts ten times worse if has a chance to swell first. Now let’s see the other,” says the woman briskly. She is plain, with mousy brown hair pulled back in a severe knot. She wears a sky-and-rust woven shawl over her gray servant’s dress in spite of the unseasonable warmth. She isn’t afraid of a red-eyed Sheikah in her garden, and her hands are strong. “Ok, just the one sprain. Show me where else you’re wounded, so we can decide if it’s safe to move you somewhere cleaner.”

Zelda stammers and weeps.  _ What can I say? Sheik is dead and everything is terrible. She would never understand. She will think me stupid - I have to get out of here-! _

The woman sighs. “I can’t help if I don’t know. So either you show me or I search you until I find the cut. One will hurt a lot more than the other.”

“Can’t,” whispers Zelda.

“You  _ can _ . No one is so perfect they can’t get hurt, not even a Sheikah warrior-mage.”

“Don’t touch,” sniffles Zelda, trapped under the kind eyes of someone else’s servant. “It’s all woven with poisongrass and shadow magic.”

“Ok, I can’t leave you to get my gloves, because I’m pretty sure you’re going to try something stupid the moment I turn my back.  _ But _ ,” says the woman with a wry grin. “My betrothed promised to visit this morning, so when  _ he _ gets here,  _ well _ .”

“Oh no -  _ no one _ can know I was ever here - oh kill me now,” wails Zelda.

The woman rocks back on her heels, planting her fists on her hips. “I think you ought to tell me what happened. I might know someone that can help.”

Zelda shakes her head in denial, but her tongue betrays her. “It’s all over. They’ll  _ know _ if I go back, and all of this is lost forever.”

The woman frowns. “You can’t run too far because of the Sheikah curse, so you’re going to have to face whatever it is sooner or later. Talk to me. There’s been soldiers everywhere for days. Did something happen to the Princess?”

Zelda sniffles in misery. She touches her thigh, smearing more bloodstains on her fingers to show the woman. “Sheik is gone. It’s over.”

“Oh,” says the woman softly, looking at the blood, the spreading damp on her dark hose. She unwinds her vast bright shawl, wraps it around Zelda’s shoulders, covering the shadowcloth, and pulls her into a fierce embrace. “Your secret is safe with me. Go ahead and cry as much as you need to - it will clear your head and ease your heart. It’s good to grieve when things change. You’ll be ok though. I can help. You’re not the first boy to meet this kind of challenge.”

Zelda breaks. She loses all sense of time, curled up under an ancient willow in a borrowed woolen shawl, weeping in a kind stranger’s lap. The woman rocks her like she’s a child again, murmuring over and over that everything will be ok.

A faint cheerful whistle drifts through the dappled shadows. A latch clicks and hinges groan. A raspy, accented voice calls out in greeting.

“Oh  _ excellent _ ,” says the woman. “Julien is here. Stay put - I will send him to the alchemist for us, and then we’ll get you inside. Ok?”

“Nonono - I have to go - no one can see me here,” says Zelda, trying to pull away.

“Nonsense,” says the woman, patting her veiled head. “No one is home except us staff, and as for Julien? He’s a dear, sweet man. You can trust him. But I understand wanting to clean up a bit first. Let me just speak with him a moment. I’ll be right back.”

The woman pulls away, calling brightly to this Julien, who answers her with a warmth that leaves no doubt he is the betrothed the woman mentioned before. Zelda crawls closer to the willow’s gnarled trunk, leaning on its strength to stand. She still cannot bear any weight on her right foot, and it is all she can do not to howl in pain. 

Zelda can’t hear the strangers’ conversation anymore, but she is busy trying to master her despair and fight the miserable cold sweat and solve the riddle of escaping anything at all when she can’t walk.

The woman returns with a bright smile and a covered basket on her arm. She uses a corner of the bright shawl to shield her skin from the shadowgarb as she pulls Zelda’s arm around her shoulders. “All squared away. He’ll be back with everything we need in an hour. If you’re still not ready to meet him then, that’s fine, he understands. I’m Anna, by the way. What name should I call you?”

Zelda stammers as she limps along beside her, scrambling for an answer and failing.

Anna laughs, and winks. “It’s ok. Your secrets are safe with me  _ your highness _ .”

Zelda squeaks in shock, fumbling at her neck for the necklace with the enchanted amethyst that is  _ supposed _ to change her eyes and voice into Sheik’s. It is still there, still warm and shining with active shadow magic.

Anna laughs and squeezes her in a little side-hug. “There’s not many Sheikah left, you know. I’ve never seen you closer than a parade before, but I know about how tall you are, I was nine when you were born, and I know when the moon is  _ supposed _ to come by for her first visit. With how skinny you are, and your adventures today, it’s not that hard to guess. But I’d still like to know the name you  _ want _ to wear.”

“I - I used to just be called Sheik, like this. But I can’t-”

“Sheik it is then,” says Anna with a nod. “Come on, the bath is just up one flight, and then we’ll see about how to get your uniform washed up safely, and you fitted with everything you’re going to need. Ok?”

“Ok,” says Zelda weakly. “But I still - I thank you for your help, but your kindness still only buys me one day. They will still find out. They check all the laundry. Have since I was ten.”

“So bring your laundry to me,” says Anna with a smile, opening the bright blue door onto a serene tiled room. “I might not have  _ real _ magic, but I can  _ definitely _ work some hedgewitchery for  _ that _ problem.”


	40. Letters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for swears, references to peril and systemic violence, nerdiness, references to prior stories, and a leetle on-page violence.

The headaches finally lift as much as they ever do. Hiraeth returned to his usual work, more or less, from Thornday afternoon. There isn’t any purpose going through Hebron’s ledgers again, or any of the other nobleborn under his authority. Nonetheless, he needs to look busy and he can’t abide sitting idle anyway.

Faireday is excruciatingly uneventful.

Barleyday is the same, except this week Julien doesn’t even send his card up to try and tempt him into idleness. Hiraeth tells himself it is nothing. With the army still mucking up traffic all over town, _no one_ goes anywhere they don’t absolutely have to. 

Hiraeth can’t audit military expenses and requisitions directly, but he _can_ pull private tax records for garrison officers and _provincial_ prison wardens and registered traveling merchants, and he _can_ comb through old broadsheets and gossip rags. 

So he does.

He hadn’t really expected the Minister to get him access to any of the High Arbiters’ accounts before Lightsday, but when Zephyrsday passes in silence also, he starts to feel itchy and restless. He considers a detour through the Fountain District, just to assure himself Julien isn’t still angry with him. He considers haunting Cartwheel Street to assure himself the Fullers aren’t starving themselves with taking care of their neighbors, and to see his father’s progress getting rubble cleared for new foundations at the west end of the neighborhood. He considers stopping by LonLon’s shopfront in the market to assure himself that he hasn’t burnt _all_ his connections.

_Any of that would be a measurable variance from my ‘usual habits’, I’m already stretching the definition of harmless just by existing, and never mind poking about in accounts that aren’t part of the official audit._

Hiraeth avoids conversation at dinner, and buries himself in ancient poetry at night because he can’t sleep. 

Kindleday is quiet also. 

Hiraeth doesn’t pray. 

He _does_ argue with himself on whether he should break his word and tell his father what he’s gotten tangled in. _This too would be a marked change - but can we afford to find out Cedric wasn’t bluffing about the risk spilling over?_

Hiraeth paces their tiny city garden that night, turning the antique copy of _Avoemayish of Erech_ over and over in his hands. 

> _“The Gods gathered around her,_  
>  _Angry at my insult to the Goddess,_  
>  _The Gods agreed that I should die."_  
>  _In tears Avoemayish  answered:_  
>  _"O my friend,_  
>  _My brother,_  
>  _Why would the Gods punish you and not me?_  
>  _We have done all things together._  
>  _Go to sleep brother."_  
>  _But Rinku became very ill,_  
>  _Avoemayish paced back and forth,_  
>  _Tore out his hair,_  
>  _And grieved as his brother died.”_

_The gods punished the ancient hero for standing with the great king in his refusal of an unjust demand - if I do what is right and necessary, innocents_ **_may_ ** _suffer. If I turn away and pretend I do not see the blood and greed to protect my family, innocents_ **_will absolutely_ ** _suffer. How am I any better than these foul takkuri if I choose my comfort over my duty?_

_But Myra and Kyra, Ishi and Saso, Leela and Jolene - they did not choose to risk their lives for cold principle._

_Neither did any of the burned villages and destitute refugees of the border wars. How many more will suffer if I cannot find a way to make the Council withdraw the march orders?_

Sometime after nadir, Hiraeth climbs to his bedroom to lay down and pretend to sleep. Link catches him in the hallway, pressing a glass into his hands. He doesn’t say anything, but raises his own, identical glass. His eyes are red - from drinking or from secret tears or both.

Hiraeth salutes in kind, and they stand in the dim upstairs hall, sipping some strange, nearly colorless spirit so sharp it makes his tongue curl. It warms him all the way down, and somehow seems to settle a little of the chaos in his head. “You’ll be home tomorrow?”

Link nods.

“Good,” murmurs Hiraeth. _Tomorrow is six days. Nearly a week. I will hold my tongue one more night._ “You should take holidays sometimes, baba.”

Link snorts and lifts his glass again.

“I’m serious. When’s the last time you let yourself rest? The sky won’t fall because you take an afternoon to nap and be idle in the garden,” says Hiraeth, savoring the sharp liquor. There isn’t much of it in his glass - or his father’s, but that could as easily be for having started on his own an hour ago. He’s never tasted anything quite like this crisp, clean fire.

Link’s lips twitch in the beginnings of a ghost of a smile. “Funny you should say that.”

“Funny or not, I’m right, and you know it,” says Hiraeth, gesturing with his glass. 

Link stares up at him with an expression that says a question dances on his tongue. But what he says is: “Apple trees are nice. And wildberries. And memoryleaf. Sometimes I dream that I hear honeybees and angelwings, too.”

“The girls would be over the moon for _you_ to take them out to the Appelan orchards on Faireday. Maybe a little tour about the Crenel Hills so they can sketch the old monastery ruins. It would be good for you,” says Hiraeth, draining the rest of his glass and setting it on the hall table. “Get the hell out of this city for a while.”

“And you will be - where?”

Hiraeth shrugs and offers a wry grin. “Just think about it. I’ll catch up with you after I’ve taken care of things.”

Link says nothing, but only stares at him, tension screaming from every muscle.

Hiraeth ruffles his hair to jostle him from whatever shadow clings to his mind at times like this. It is a little joke they’ve shared from the day Hiraeth grew a single inch taller than his father. Most men would be angry to have his children teasing him for being short, but Link always seems to draw a strange comfort from it. _But if those “odd jobs” in his youth were as deadly as I suspect, people would probably be too afraid to touch him at all before long, and nevermind risk offending him._  

Link snorts and gestures him closer for a brief little side-hug before shooing him off to bed. He is gone to the worksites on Cartwheel Street long before Hiraeth rises.

Woolday morning is as quiet as the last five.

Hiraeth can barely read the lines in front of his nose, he is so distracted by the problem of silence. Everything he’s found only persuades him at _least_ one of the Arbiters’ accounts will be important, but he doesn’t know which one, and nothing he _does_ have in hand is more than circumstantial. 

He gives up just after zenith, pleading a headache as usual. He is not sure he will bother coming back - but the choice is taken from him before he measures even four steps down the hall. The Minister’s secretary looks infuriatingly smug to summoning him to the office. No doubt the fool thinks he is about to be dismissed.

_Which, to be fair, I might be._

Hiraeth is led into the Minister’s empty main office. The secretary shuts the door behind him. 

Five minutes pass. There are exactly thirteen broad brass nails across the top of the Minister’s desk chair.

A smaller, hidden door opens in the panelling behind the desk. _Max_ steps through and beckons him over. He doesn’t let go of the slender, tarnished silver and sapphire key. 

Hiraeth obeys, surprised to find the Minister’s sitting room on the other side, though he could have sworn _that_ room was on the next floor up. But it certainly holds the same worn leather couch, and the same old paintings, and the same unfashionably heavy sideboard. _I must have miscounted that night, between the headache and Julien being weird._

The Minister slumps at the little felt-topped card table with his head in his hands. A half-empty decanter sits beside him, and a half-empty glass. There are red-backed cards scattered on the table, and piles of red and purple rupee.

Hiraeth does not believe for even one breath that Cedric is grieving a loss at cards. “Sir.”

He says nothing. He does not even grunt in answer. 

Max locks the door and crosses behind his friend to reclaim his own chair. He wears the frivolous mask with perfect charm.

“Sir. There is a pattern in the habits of the commanders and quartermasters of the west-central and southwest garrisons. Trade losses from several estates in the audit track perfectly with broadsheet notices from that region, _and also_ regularly occur six weeks _after_ the nearest garrison receives reinforcements, and three weeks _before_ the nearest provincial lockup pays for extra hours - but _not_ for extra provisions.”

“That is the _opposite_ of what I told you to do,” says the Minister without looking up. “You have no business in nor clearance for military archives of any kind.”

“I didn’t need them. These scorpions cast a shadow even in public record and personal accounts. It’s too regular for circumstance, especially with the connection to holiday-”

“Enough,” says Cedric to the table. “Drop your theories, and drop this case, and maybe think about taking a _holiday_ right the fuck across the border before you _can’t_.”

“No,” says Hiraeth, folding his hands behind his back. “Your threats only confirm I’m right. At least a third of the Gerudo border raids are outright fabrications, and some number of bribes were never rupee at all. You can’t throw a feast for five hundred at solstice without buying a _lot_ more wheat. Remember Kateos and his six little missing pieces every holiday? Colonel Tasho isn’t creative enough for _good_ ciphers, but he has the _same_ _six_ little ‘miscellaneous’ expenses on every fucking holy day.”

“I said _drop it_ ,” shouts the Minister, slamming a fist on the table and pushing to his feet. “You bring me _circumstance_ . You bring me strings of nonsense you _claim_ are code. I burn my _last_ favor with Impa to get those truthlenses for you in the first place and all you can fucking tell me is there’s a pattern that _probably_ means _something_?”

“Sir,” begins Hiraeth.

“Do not _sir_ me, young man,” snaps the Minister. “Do you _realize_ what I’ve _done_ for six goddamned days on the strength of your conveniently _westerly_ intuition? I have _begged_ for a royal audience. I have emptied my pockets with bribes to heralds and stewards and _chambermaids_ for the love of Light! And do you know what I got from the Council of Peers this morning when I gave up on a direct appeal and brought them a petition to approve a ‘succession plan’ for an unspecified senior auditor? A pat on the head and a hint about drawing _my_ pension _while I still have the health to enjoy it._ How long do you think that’s likely to _be_ , boy? Thank all the saints of Light I never married and have no sibs left to suffer.”

“As long as both our lives are forfeit, we might as well steal what we need and nail Hebron to the wall on the way down,” says Hiraeth with a wry grin. _To hell with honor - I’m telling Jolene to take the girls back home_ **_tonight_ ** _, and I’ll deal with father after._

Cedric stares at him, breath labored in the wake of his outburst. He shakes his head and drops back into his chair, making it groan and cry. “You can’t. No one can. Even if you’re right, the doors won’t even _open_ for the likes of _us_ . We’re _common_.”

“That is the _dumbest_ law I ever-” begins Hiraeth.

“And they _will_ know if you try anyway, so _don’t even think about it_ . They’ll only kill _me_ . They won’t hesitate to send _you_ to the-”

“What do you need?” Max asks in a conversational tone, scraping a speck of dirt from under his nail.

“Nothing you can help with,” says Cedric, leaning back in his chair and scrubbing a hand over his face. “Clearance. And noble blood. But the right kind of clearance can get us _one_ account, which is still _terrible_ odds.”

Max shrugs, digging a red-and-gold-and-white envelope from his doublet. “Even a sharp wager is better than nothing.”

 _I’ve seen an envelope like that only once before._ “It’s not one in six. It’s one in three. Get me transfer logs for the regional prisons and five hundred rupee says I can make it _one_ in one.”

Cedric stares at the envelope. He doesn’t reach for it, even when Max lets it fall to the table. “What.”

“Ok, fair. Maybe one in two,” conceeds Hiraeth. “And it’s hard to believe the Minister of Justice doesn’t have at least an inkling _something_ doesn’t balance, but that would be another battle entirely.”

Cedric ignores him to stare at the envelope like it might bite him.

Max picks up the forgotten glass and crosses one knee over the other, completely at ease. He looks at Hiraeth with an expression other people wear when they’re trying to decide if they want to ask the price of something in a shop window. He says nothing.

Cedric takes a penknife from his pocket. He cuts the seal with trembling hands and slides another envelope and a single sheet of heavy rag paper from it. The paper bears only a few lines bracketed with elaborate flourishes, all of it in gold-flecked blue ink. He stutters as he reads quietly: “ _This letter is carried by Cedric Ambrose Minshi of Rebonae, honored Minister of Finance. He is under my orders to save Hyrule. Obey him as you would me. Crown Princess Zelda Sophia Hyrule._ ”

“Holy fucking stars,” breathes Hiraeth. The sheer _power_ of that tiny piece of paper staggers him.

“You absolute _bastard_ ,” says Cedric, dropping the letter to stare at Max.

Who nods in vague agreement, savoring his drink.

“You sat there. All afternoon. You - Blessed Three, you had this the _whole time-?_ ”

“Naturally,” says Max with a cavalier grin.

“You _sadistic_ sicario,” says Cedric in horror.

“You’re welcome,” returns Max with a little salute. “It was my pleasure. Anyways, it was good for you to loosen those laces and _breathe_ for once.”

Cedric doesn’t move. He stares at his friend. “ _How-?_ ”

Max shrugs. “I possess the happy sort of manners that allows me to make friends easily. You might want to open the other one.”

Cedric continues to swear.

“Well if _you’re_ not going to open it, _I_ will,” says Hiraeth, moving to join them at the table. No one stops him. It holds a near copy of the other paper, except this one bears no name. _This letter is carried by a faithful champion of truth. He acts under my orders to save Hyrule. Crown Princess Zelda Sophia Hyrule._

Max calmly enjoys his drink.

“I think - I’m going to - need to steal something from your sideboard. Sir.”

No one pays any attention to him. Cedric is still swearing at Max, and Max is still enjoying it.

Hiraeth tucks the letter back in its elaborate envelope, and the envelope into the inner breast pocket of his coat. He goes to the sideboard and chooses a bottle at random, pouring himself a generous measure. He tastes nothing but sharp and heat. He waits a full minute. He takes the envelope out of his coat and looks at the paper again. The words have not changed. “I am - going home. I believe I have a headache.”

Neither acknowledges him.

Hiraeth sees himself out in a daze. He can barely perceive the ground in front of him because his entire conscious mind is banging pots and pans and babbling about the letter in his pocket that authorises him to do _almost anything he can think of_.

He is rudely awakened from this pleasant - if terrifying - haze by a great weight landing on his back and the world going curiously white. He remains suspended in the searing haze for just long enough to blind him when he opens his eyes again to a shadowed alley and his best friend crouched over him with a horrible cold bar pressed against his throat. His fictional headache is suddenly _intensely_ real, and he cannot understand why he is sitting on the dirty cobbles with his back against a brick wall.

“What the _fuck_ ,” snarls Julien.

“Was gonna - ask the same,” rasps Hiraeth. It hurts to talk and he is pretty sure he’s slurring. Looking at the bright sky hurts. Looking at the shadowed face of his friend hurts. _Looking_ hurts. _At least it’s still afternoon? I think?_

“Oh no, you do not ask the questions anymore my friend. You _answer_ . What the _fuck_ have you _done_?”

“Hey, I didn’t mean any offense Jules, your damn cousin was being _weird_ and _cryptic_ and I was _guessing_ , ok? Leggo,” rasps Hiraeth.

Julien does not release a hair of pressure from his throat. “What?”

Hiraeth groans. “Would you people stop expecting me to read your damn minds?”

“Shut up,” snaps Julien. He shifts his stance and a tiny sharpness in his side announces its presence by its sudden absence. He pulls Hiraeth’s coat askew and digs into the breast pocket. He swears a profoundly obscene oath when he touches the envelope. He doesn’t pull it out. He does wind his fist in Hiraeth’s neckcloth and slam him tighter against the wall.

“Goddamnit - what the _fuck_ Jules?” Hiraeth groans, completely lost. “And why do you smell like - like burned hair and... _bombflower_ . Oh _fuck_. Jules-”

“ _Why do you have this?_ ” Julien demands in Lurelin. Which almost nobody else in Hyrule speaks but them. And probably Max.

Hiraeth stumbles through his foggy mind for an answer that won’t break all his oaths at once. “Why do _you_ know I have it?”

“Because _I’m_ the one who was paid to give _him_ the book it was in, and _she_ bribed me to follow whoever _he_ gave it to,” snaps Julien. “What the fuck have you _done-_ ? Do you have a deathwish? Do you even know what you’re tangling with, getting _me_ sent to find out who _you_ are?”

“Well I _thought_ I did, and that was bad enough,” groans Hiraeth. “Indulge my curiosity before you finish the job. Did you set the explosives up at the castle?”

“Of _course_ not. I only came within kissing distance of losing my head and everything else to a bunch of drunk highborn who _think_ they know how to launch bombachu, and one craven saboteur hiding among them,” says Julien, easing up on the - apparently telescoping - brass bar. “I’m not going to kill you. Today. Not that I’m not tempted-! Because I am. And don’t look at me like that! _Fuck_ . Come on, shred that letter. We’re _leaving_.”

“No,” says Hiraeth, sagging back against the wall and trying to recover his breath. He wonders how he will explain his strange bruises to his father. “I have - things I have to do.”

“Not anymore you don’t. I have a carriage waiting at the east wicket gate. Wind and Wave take your _bloody_ pride - take my damn hand and let’s _go_ before-”

“Before what? Royal knights come for you? If you know what she wrote, then you know-”

“Enough not to swing sticks at courser hives? Yeah. Your days are numbered while you carry a letter of marque from a _Zelda_ my friend, and it’s _not_ a big number. ”

“That’s why I have to stay,” says Hiraeth, closing his eyes. It doesn’t actually ease the pain. At all. “We’re _so close_ , Jules. I _know_ what the pattern is now. I just have to _prove_ it.”

Julien groans. And swears. And stomps his boot on the cobbles. He tugs at his wild curls and swears again. He destroys an abandoned shipping crate with a snap of his brass bar. He stands over the splinters, toying with the balance of the vicious instrument. “I _should_ knock you into next week and _drag_ you across the border.”

“You’re the second person to say something to that effect today,” says Hiraeth. “For what it’s worth, my father knows whose books I was - ah - reading. I'm _pretty_ sure if I vanish _now_ , he’s going to just kill the scorpion outright. It’s not justice and it won’t stop the - thing that we talked about before, but might allow for something _like_ peace, after. Long after. Like two _Zora_ generations after.”

“Merciful Three preserve us all,” mutters Julien to the sky. He collapses the brass bar again  and tucks it into a waistcoat pocket that shouldn’t be big enough in any dimension. His pocket somehow not only holds the bar, but does so without even a wrinkle to say it holds _anything_ . “Dance a reel in a burning house why don’t you. Why not. It’s only the _world_ on the scales Jules, what’s a little _folly_ and _masque_ against all that? Might as well one last glass before we close into firing range and I have to do my bloody _goddamn_ duty.”

Hiraeth watches him talk to the painfully blue sky. Julien’s hair isn’t just untidy - it’s uneven. And scorched. And he’s dressed as plain as he was when they parted on Lightsday morning a week and a half ago. “I don’t know you at all, do I?”

Julien looks down at him, expression unreadable in the heavy shadows of the alley. He draws from another pocket a slender ebony jewel case with familiar iridescent flourishes, turning it over in his hands twice before he holds it out for Hiraeth to reclaim. “I do not have Max’s talents. Anything you do _not_ know is because you have chosen not to know it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note:  
> Yes, I am aware a letter of marque is specifically for on the sea. Remember Julien is in fact a navy man and will apply that lens to the rest of the world. Also it comes as close as I know of to describing the sweeping powers - and purpose - granted by the canonical Zelda’s Letter.


End file.
